Within The Messages
by Sariasprincy
Summary: As the head of forensics at the Tokyo Police Department, Sakura found herself as the head scientist for the department's new case. And it has her working very closely with Uchiha Itachi. She never thought this case would bring them closer. And she never thought that the killer would be a member of the TMPD. ItaSaku Modern Police-Universe
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys, I understand that this is the same story I had posted years ago. I know a lot of you liked it and I had to take it down for personal reasons, but those reasons no longer exist so I am posting it again! So hope you all are excited to reread (or read for the first time!)**

 **Please note that I have not made any changes from the previous version. IT IS THE SAME STORY AS PREVIOUSLY POSTED!**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter One  
Blood, Coffee, and Music

"Two divers made a frightening discovery today when they came across what appears to be an underwater graveyard early this morning while fixing an underwater valve off the coast of Yokohama. Authorities have recovered over twenty bodies, all securely wrapped in large garbage bags, but a specific count is still yet to be released…"

Sakura didn't hear the rest of the television announcer as she stood frozen to her spot. Her heart felt like it had stilled in her chest as her grip loosened on her coffee cup. She almost dropped it, but caught it at the last second before she set it on the counter without turning her attention away from the television. She listened carefully as the screen showed police officials continue to pull black bags from the ocean depths and onto the pavement. It was only when her phone went off was she able to tear her eyes away from the shocking sight.

Quickly Sakura flipped her phone open and stared at the caller ID. It was her best friend from high school, Ino. She answered it as she turned off the television and grabbed her car keys. "Hello?"

"Sakura, you need to come in now. Did you see the news? The Superintendent General is calling a meeting with all personnel in the district about the bodies found earlier," Ino said quickly. "He thinks there's a new serial killer."

"Of course there's a new serial killer," Sakura said. She hurriedly locked the door to her rather small apartment before she trotted down a flight of stairs to the main lobby. As she passed the front desk, she gave a small wave before she stepped through the front doors and looked for her car. A small shiver raced up her spine when she walked into the cold morning air. She did her best to ignore the cold as she held her phone up with her shoulder while she fumbled for her the key to open her car. "What's the final body count?"

"Twenty-eight," Ino said as Sakura finally managed to get her car key into the hole.

The pink-haired woman almost dropped her phone in shock. _"Twenty-eight?_ We have more than just a 'serial killer' on our hands," Sakura said as she got into her car and started the engine.

"Yeah, well get here quickly. The Superintendent General is going to start his meeting soon. Use those old field officer driving moves I know you have," Ino said half-playfully before she hung up.

Sakura sighed quietly before she turned up her heater and sped through the early morning Tokyo traffic towards the Tokyo Metro Police Department. Easily she dodged through the busy traffic to get to work, hoping no one would notice her absence; she was already half an hour late.

As she weaved in and out of the lanes in a constant speed that excelled the actual speed limit she couldn't help but reminisce the times long ago when she used to do this every day. She would always drive with her team to a crime scene – she was the best driver out of the four of them – with Hatake Kakashi in the passenger seat and Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke in the back fighting. Sakura used to always blast the stereo to drown them out, which usually ended in a scolding by the Superintendent General for disturbing the crime scene/drivers around them, but he always gave her a small, knowing smirk afterwards. Though that all changed after Sasuke got his promotion to Chief Superintendent. After that, the rest of the team had decided to spilt up and move onto something else.

Kakashi was still the head of his own team and Naruto had moved onto blood splatter analysis, though he sometimes went on missions with their old leader. Sakura, herself, had gone into forensics, the job she had initially gone to college for. It was actually in college when Sakura had first met Sasuke. Back then he had been learning to be a weapons' specialist. Now he was the Chief Superintendent – the lucky bastard – _and_ a weapons' specialist. They both worked in the lab, which usually led to them seeing each other most days of the week. Sometimes they even fought over what music they listened to as they worked. Though, Sasuke always pulled rank – which was low in her opinion – and got his way, but she made up for it by threatening him with the fact that if she ever went back into the field and got injured, she would live with him and use his really nice, really brand new Mazda for her own entertainment. Of course Sasuke didn't seem bothered by it and would just snort and argue that it would never happen so he didn't have to worry about it.

With a soft sigh, Sakura turned down her music and flashed her badge to the gate guard before she pulled into the TMPD parking lot. As quickly as possible, she collected her phone and pile of files – most of them were Ino's – before she sprinted into the building and pressed the up button on the elevator with her elbow as she balanced all her papers. When the doors opened, she carefully did the same for the button to the eighteenth floor before she stepped aside to allow the other occupants to press their own floor.

Impatiently she tapped her foot against the floor as the lift opened and closed to allow people to get in and out. It was a fairly fast trip, but because of Sakura's tardiness she became impatient as she prayed she didn't get in trouble for her lateness. Sasuke had already complained about it a few times.

When the doors to the floor finally opened, Sakura's jaw fell when she saw just how many people were rushing around the floor. The eighteenth floor was usually busy, seeing as it was where the Superintendent General's office was located, but this was just madness. There was no way she was going to make it through here without spilling all her papers all over the floor or tripping and making an ass of herself. She had enough trouble walking with a pile of papers in her hands normally. How was she going to do it with this many obstacles?

Taking a deep breath, Sakura stepped into the rushing madness of bodies and pushed her way through the walkways towards Ino's desk. She saw the blonde sitting behind her computer typing away and just as Sakura was about to reach her, someone stepped out in front of her and threw her off balance. The pink-haired woman stumbled forward and accidentally dumped all of her files over her best friend's desk in her attempt to catch herself from falling.

" _What the fuck?"_ Ino screeched, catching the attention of more than half a dozen investigators. Her head snapped around to cuss at the person who dared dump all their papers all over her desk, but quickly relaxed when she saw who it was. "Sakura, what the hell?"

Sakura smiled sheepishly but made no move to clean up Ino's desk and instead took a seat on the edge. "Sorry. The madhouse tripped me."

Ino glared at her and lazily threw the files into a messy stack before she continued with her earlier work. "You broke your record."

Sakura's expression became confused at her friend's words, but she didn't look away from her computer as a picture of a 3-D brain came onto the screen. The purple and yellow colors didn't mean anything to her, but Ino seemed extremely interested in whatever it meant.

"You made it to work forty-five minutes after you were supposed to be here," Ino said casually.

"Yes, where were you, Haruno?" someone asked.

Both females looked up at the sound of the newcomer and stared at Sasuke with a slightly surprised expression. He returned their gazes with that same impassive one Sakura first saw years ago when she met the Uchiha her freshman year in college. Unfortunately for him, the cold, hard look he'd used no longer fazed her.

In fact, nothing about Sasuke had really changed during the spans of their six-year friendship. He was still tall – about a half a foot taller than her – and his same broody aura still surrounded him. Through his black suit, Sakura could see the muscle and well-build body girls used to drool over in college. His dark eyes still looked cold and distant, and his hair was still in the same spiky style from all those years ago. She half wondered if his high school pictures had the same look.

"I had some things to attend to, Chief Superintendent," Sakura replied casually. The tone she used made his title sound condescending.

"Care to elaborate?" he asked, a hint of annoyance breaking through his usual calm tone.

Sakura stared at Sasuke for a long time, trying to understand how she got under his skin so quickly. One glance and she immediately saw the slight bags under his eyes, blemishing his usually flawless face. Even if she hadn't been in med school for two years, she could tell he hadn't slept through the night, probably due to the discovery early this morning. She guessed he was running on a constant flow of coffee and caffeine to keep him awake, and from the cup she just noticed in his hand she knew she was right.

"I woke up late, sorry," Sakura finally said.

Sasuke's glare was half-hearted. "Make sure it doesn't happen again."

Sakura opened her mouth to respond, but stopped when Ino shushed her quiet. The pink-haired woman turned to retort, but she noticed the noise level in the room had dropped drastically. Slowly she turned her eyes to where her best friend was staring and realized what the big hush was about. Immediately Sakura stared at the Superintendent General with her undivided attention.

At the front of the room, Sasuke's older brother and the head of the police department stood with his head high and his shoulders back. Uchiha Itachi was the youngest Superintendent General in the history of all of Japan's police force. Sakura had learned over the years he was generally a good person to work for. He was extremely polite and excelled at what he did, but his only downfall was he was distant and unsociable. The first time she held a real conversation with him, his distant demeanor and emotionless expression had been such a shock to her that she thought she had done something wrong. Luckily for her, Sasuke had explained to her that was just how his older brother was and Itachi only really got upset or annoyed when his officers showed stupidity or insubordination; it was times like those when his frosty attitude reared its ugly head.

Sakura had only witnessed his darker side once and thankfully it hadn't been direct at her. She could still remember the look on the policewoman's face as she walked out of Itachi's office with tears in her eyes and her head down as if afraid if she looked at anyone. Sasuke had told her later that she had quit the very same day and no one had seen her since, which wasn't technically a bad thing. According to the other officers, she wasn't very adept at doing her job.

Though despite his young age, Itachi was extremely bright and had solved more than a dozen cold cases that were written off as inconclusive. It hadn't taken him long to earn the respect of his subordinates and Sakura was no exception.

His second-in-command, Uchiha Shisui, on the other hand was a whole other story.

The first time Sakura met Shisui it had been during her first week working at the TMPD. The first words out of Shisui's mouth had been something about how nice her ass was, which had only ended in a bloody nose and a loud string of curses on his part. Ever since then, Shisui had made sure to stay a good few feet away from her and keep their relationship strictly professional, or at least he attempted to keep their relationship strictly professional.

Sakura grinned to herself at the memory.

The best part was when she had accidentally eavesdropped on one of his conversations and overheard him say she had a deceptively strong swing. The whole ordeal had taught Sakura's colleagues not to mess with her inappropriately and sometimes Kakashi would even ask her to accompany him in the field, reminding her he could make use of her deadly left hook, though she always denied him.

"As you may have all heard," Itachi said, drawing Sakura out of her reminiscing, "twenty-eight bodies were discovered early this morning on the coast of Yokohama. Many officers are still at the crime scene collecting evidence and the remaining bodies, but the majority of the victims are already in the morgue with Chief Medical Officer Hyuuga."

Itachi's gaze roamed around the fifty-some officers as Shisui spoke: "Hyuuga has determined that all the bodies were murdered in the same way: stabbed and bled dry."

A few murmurs broke out and Shisui paused as he waited for everyone to fall silent again. It took a few seconds, but when the whispering finally died out Shisui didn't speak. He sent a glance at his younger cousin, but the Superintendent General didn't return it. Instead, he focused his gaze on all the officers around the room.

"As many of you may have already guessed, I will clarify it for you," he said calmly. "We have a new serial killer."

Those words sent a cold chill up Sakura's spine as he confirmed what she had been thinking earlier. Sure, she and Ino had talked about it and Sakura had already known it was a serial killer, but to hear the words come directly from her boss's lips made it real.

"Which is why I have chosen a select few to help in this investigation," Itachi continued, stopping all conversation before it could even start.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura saw Ino sit up straighter in her seat as Itachi glanced around the room. There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere and as Sakura looked around, she caught sight of everyone in the room sitting or standing up a little bit straighter. The sudden sense of importance that fell over the room made everyone react in a way that Sakura found amusing; like their posture would decide if they made the team or not.

"Nara," Shisui spoke, "you have one of the most ingenious minds to ever be in the Tokyo Metro Police Department. We're going to need you to fill in the gaps of the mystery."

A loud, audible groan was heard from the back and Sakura couldn't help but smile in amusement at his annoyance. Out of everyone, he was the one police officer that didn't want to get on the case. Unfortunately for him, once officers were chosen for hard cases they were stuck unless something more important came up and that was highly unlikely to happen this time.

Sakura hardly listened as Shisui named off more names. She vaguely watched as all called officers bowed in acceptance before sitting down once more. It was only when Ino stood did she tune in again.

"Yamanaka, you're going to be responsible for talking to the media. You'll be coordinating with me, Sasuke, and Itachi about what to say and what to keep to ourselves," Shisui said seriously.

Ino immediately jumped to her feet and bowed. When she sat back down, her eyes were absolutely sparkling with excitement. Sakura stared at her with an amused look but Ino was too excited to even notice Sakura's teasing. By the time she did, Sakura distantly heard the Uchihas dismiss everyone. Ino opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but someone approached them before she could.

Slowly Sakura pulled her eyes away from her best friend to find the Superintendent General standing in front of her. Immediately she jumped to her feet and bowed respectfully. "Sir," she greeted.

Itachi nodded in reply before he motioned for her to follow him. Obediently Sakura tailed after him and threw a backwards glance at Ino. Her blonde friend shrugged in response, not understanding why Itachi would need to talk to her alone, before Sakura returned her gaze in front of her. He stopped a few feet from his office before he turned to her.

As usual, his expression was carefully impassive, but his eyes were watching her with an intense look he always held when speaking to someone one-on-one. It was at that moment Sakura realized – not for the first time – how attractive he really was. His stoic face was unnaturally handsome with high cheekbones, a sharp nose, and thin, soft-looking lips. His long raven hair was tied neatly at the nape of his neck, falling loosely over his shoulder in smooth, straight strands. His black suit did nothing but compliment his well-toned body and even with the material in the way, she could see the muscles in his arms and torso.

Then there were his eyes. Those beautiful eyes gifted to all the Uchiha working in the building. It didn't matter what mood they were in, those to-die-for obsidian eyes never failed to capture her attention and make her lose her train of thought. The way Sasuke's shined when he was angry, and how clear they were when Shisui was in a good mood, and – Sakura's personal favorite – the depth of Itachi's when he calculated and observed every move everyone made; the same look he was using on her now. It made her warm at the intensity of it.

And then for some reason, Itachi suddenly seemed very intimidating. Sakura's mouth went dry and slowly she dragged her eyes back up to Itachi's face, mentally chastising herself for openly ogling her superior. The look in his eyes made Sakura realize he knew what she was doing and a small blush tinted her cheeks in embarrassment. Oops.

"Yes, sir?" Sakura asked as calmly as she could.

Itachi stared at her for a long moment. "You are going to be working on this case."

Sakura's brows shot straight up in surprise, but he didn't pause to give her the chance to recover. "You have skill in more than one area and I need an agent that can do multiple competences. I have taken the liberty of reassigning some of your incomplete cases so you can arrange your schedule accordingly."

"Arrange my schedule, sir?" Sakura asked confused.

Itachi nodded once. "I'm going to need you ready at a moment's notice to analyze any evidence we find necessary."

Sakura's expression became thoughtful, though her body was almost trembling in excitement. "Do you have anything for me right now?"

He nodded in reply. "Everything is all ready in the lab. Sasuke will be continuously checking on you to be sure everything is in order."

Sakura opened her mouth to reply but was cut off short by someone calling her angrily. She snapped her head around and found Sasuke was standing near the elevator with an annoyed expression. His arms were crossed and he was tapping his foot impatiently against the white tiled floor in a gesture of aggravation.

"Uh," Sakura started. "I should go before his head explodes."

Itachi's lips lifted in a small smirk before he nodded in agreement. "That would probably be a good idea."

He nodded her dismissal before he turned to enter his office. She waited for him to walk through the door before she took a deep breath and mentally prepared herself for the hellish day she was about to be thrown into.

* * *

By the time Sakura had finally finished getting all the DNA samples from all twenty-eight victims she was tired as hell. Sasuke hadn't been much help, seeing as all he did for most of the day was breathe down her neck to be sure she did her job correctly, which only helped in raising her stress levels which were already off the charts at being the head forensic scientist on the case. Not to mention the fact that they only had DNA matches for five victims and she knew the Superintendent General was expecting more than just that. She was not looking forward to reporting her finds tomorrow morning. She hoped with all her might there would be more matches when she checked in the morning.

A small frown etched itself onto Sakura's lips when she turned off her desk light and realized she had to return to her small, empty apartment. The thought of going home to no one had never really bothered Sakura before but since Ino had moved in with Shikamaru a couple of weeks ago the loneliness was really starting to affect her. She was used to her blonde friend being there when she returned home late from work with some cheap, microwavable dinner and a dumb movie she had picked up from the store. Now there was nothing but a cold living room and some cheap cable TV.

With a soft sigh, Sakura picked up her bag and headed towards the elevator. She reached out to press the up button, but before her fingers could even touch the glowing green arrow, the doors open and the department's new officer, Aburame Shino, walked out. His face was blank, but the small cease in his brow gave away his nervousness. "I need you to analyze these," he said, holding up two bags with a gun and an old-fashion camera.

Even from the distance, Sakura could see the blood spatter on them and carefully she took them. "I'll do it tomorrow when-."

"I need the results by tomorrow morning," Shino interrupted.

Sakura stared at him for a long moment. She opened her mouth to yell at him about not giving her evidence so late, but decided against it; he was a rookie after all. Instead she sighed loudly and gave him a hard look. "I believe I've told you before not to give me evidence at the last minute, Aburame."

Shino nodded slightly. "I got sidetracked."

Sakura shook her head. "That's not an excuse. I'll do it this time, but if you do this again you're going to have to find someone else. Am I understood?"

The rookie nodded slightly. "Yes."

Then he stepped back into the elevator and the doors closed shut. Sakura stared at her blurred reflection in the metal doors for a long moment before she finally turned and reentered her shared lab. Carelessly she dumped her bag on the ground and placed the evidence on the counter before she glanced at the clock helplessly. It was about seven, which means she wouldn't be leaving tonight. Hell, she probably wasn't going to be able to leave until late tomorrow morning at the very earliest.

Quietly she let out a small huff of frustration and glared at the evidence before her intense expression faded. "Coffee and my iPod and I'll be fine," she murmured as she headed into the backroom.

* * *

A soft click echoed through the floor as Itachi shut and locked his office door for the night. One glance around the room told him everyone had left for the night to get some much needed rest for the coming morning. It was already well past ten and he knew only a skeleton crew was on the lower floors in case of an emergency.

Silently the Uchiha made for the elevator, deciding to check on the DNA identification. Last he heard from Sasuke, they had positively identified three victims and he wanted to know how many more names they had come up with. The more backgrounds they had, the easier it would be to find a pattern in the killings.

The moment the doors opened for the lab, Itachi's head snapped up at the loud music. He stood frozen in surprise for a long moment, trying to understand where that horrid sound was coming from. Only when the elevator doors began the close again was he able to move again. Quickly he shot his arm out to stop the doors before he stepped out and walked into the lab.

Immediately he spotted Haruno Sakura leaning over her examining desk as she pulled some blood samples off an archaic camera. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun and she was wearing a pair of glasses Itachi had no idea she needed. His eyes watched the way her lips moved with the lyrics of the song she was listening to from the iPod plugged into her personal computer. A full pot of coffee was next to it with a coffee mug; both were still steaming.

Silently Itachi walked to her iPod and hit the pause button, catching the last few notes Sakura's sang before her voice cut off. Her reaction was immediate. She jumped in surprise and spun around with wide eyes. Her lips parted as she let out a heavy breath and the tense set to her shoulders relaxed when she realized who it was. "Sir," she bowed slightly, her eyes still big in bewilderment. "I didn't realize you were still here. Forgive me for not noticing you earlier."

Itachi waved her off. "Why are you still here, Haruno?"

She looked away briefly before her attention turned back to him with an expression that told him it should be obvious. "Uh, blood testing," she replied lamely, holding up the camera. "Aburame asked me to analyze these."

He raised an eye brow. "This late at night?"

She shook her head, successfully freeing a few strands of hair from her bun. "He came to me a few hours ago; right before I left." She paused. "The bastard."

The last part had been barely audible, but Itachi caught it. He stared at Sakura for a long moment before he glanced at her computer screens. "I came to check on the victims."

Understanding dawned on Sakura's face and she nodded. Fluently she set the camera in her hands down before she pulled her gloves off and threw them away. She walked to a computer on the back wall before she punched in a few keys and brought up a list with a few names accompanied by some pictures. Her eyes shifted back and forth as she enlarged the photos and names, her attention completely fixed on what she was doing.

Itachi hadn't noticed until a few months ago just how beautiful Sakura was. He had seen some quite attractive people in his life, but only a few were as original-looking as her. She wasn't like the Barbie dolls who all looked the same. Her heart-shaped face was always bright and cheerful with pale, porcelain skin and pink, full lips. Her green eyes were always changing with her mood, ranging from a hard jade when she was mad or stressed to a deep emerald when she was happy or excited. Though, his favorite feature had to be her pink hair. It was always so nice and well-kept; the style always changed with how active she was. Itachi had learned the first week she started working with them that if she was feeling motivated it would be curls and if she didn't even want to roll out of bed it would fall to the middle of her back, in waving locks.

He also loved her strength. Before Sakura had joined the TMPD it was rather boring. He was constantly dealing with Sasuke and his best friend, Uzumaki Naruto's incessant fighting, but since she stepped into the picture she had made sure to separate them before a war could break out. Though the first time he had ever seen her real strength had been when she came to work wearing a simple pair of jeans and a tank top. Shisui had made a comment on her ass, which was overstepping the line, but Sakura had stood her ground and acted on instinct, punching him hard in the face with a strong, left hook. Immediately afterwards Shisui had turned to Itachi, but he turned his back and acted as if he hadn't seen anything. It was time someone put Shisui in his place. Not only that, but it was great blackmail, ignoring the fact that it's illegal.

"Here, we are," Sakura said, pulling Itachi back to the present. "We haven't been able to identify very many victims."

"How many?" he asked.

"Uh, six," Sakura said hesitantly. "I'm guessing most haven't been put in the data base and I'm going to have to match their DNA by hand to find out who exactly they are."

Itachi nodded. "Very well. I'll have Sato Karin come in and help you tomorrow."

The Uchiha felt the shift in Sakura's mood instantly. Her content aura changed completely to one of unease and she shifted from her left foot to her right restlessly. Itachi slid his gaze over to her face to find it was completely blank, even her usually expressive eyes were an impassive forest green. Only her aura alerted him to her discomfort.

"Is there a problem?" Itachi asked calmly.

She glanced at him and smiled unconvincingly. "No, sir."

He nodded, knowing she was professional enough for her dislike of Karin to not get in the way of the job. He respected her for that and knew a 'friendly' banter would probably be the end result, but nothing they couldn't handle. It wasn't a secret to even someone as unobservant as Naruto to know that the two females hated one another, though as to why Itachi still had no idea.

"Very well," he said. "We have a meeting at eight tomorrow morning in conference room one. Make sure you're there."

Sakura nodded.

"Good night, Haruno," he said before he pressed the play button for her iPod once more.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two  
Only the Results Matter

"Haruno, do you have the results?" a voice asked, breaking through Sakura's foggy mind.

Slowly she lifted her head from her desk and stared in confusion at the blurred image of someone standing next to her. She blinked the sleep back and focused her eyes to see the fuzzy person was Shino. Still slightly disoriented, Sakura sat up slowly and glanced at her computer to find the words "100% match" blinking repeatedly on her screen. She moved to print the document, but her fingers froze over the keyboard when the clock caught her attention in the corner of her eyes. She was an hour and a half late to the meeting.

"Oh shit!" Sakura yelled, jumping to her feet.

In her mad dash to collect the necessary items, she forgot about Shino and started to run towards the elevator. The loud, intentional clearing of his throat made her freeze. Quickly Sakura spun on her heels only to freeze when she saw Karin was standing in the doorway to the backroom with a wide smirk on her face. For a long moment Sakura just stared at her in confusion, trying to remember why she was there before she vaguely recalled Itachi telling her Karin would be coming in to assist her.

 _So much for that,_ she thought acidly as she glared at the slightly younger woman before she sprinted back to her computer and printed out Shino's report, repeatedly telling the printer to hurry, before she threw the document at him. Sakura had already pressed the up button for the elevator before she groaned loudly in annoyance and ran back into her lab, passing Shino in the process.

"Hold the elevator for me," Sakura called.

The pink-haired woman completely ignored Karin's grinning face and sprinted to the computer on the far wall. Quickly she pressed the keys to print the matches for the victims from the serial killer and crossed her arms as the printer slowly coughed out the information she needed.

Her patience was slowly thinning and the fact that she could feel Karin's arrogant smirk burning a hole into her back only made the process seem to take later. Impatiently Sakura glanced at the clock every few seconds, tapping her foot quickly and loudly against the floor. She practically ripped the last paper from the printer before she sprinted back to the elevator.

A loud groan of frustration escaped her lips when she saw Shino hadn't held the elevator for her and had instead decided to go on his merry way without even so much as a thank you. Again Sakura pressed the up button, though forcefully this time, but after a few moments she gave up and instead turned to the stairwell and ran up the eighteen flights of stairs. She knew it would have been faster to wait and take the elevator, but she felt more productive this way and continued to run up the flights of stairs, taking them two at a time.

By the time she finally reached the top, her breath was coming in ragged pants and her eyes were already closing in exhaustion. Sleeping for only two hours and using large amounts of energy without eating was going to kill her. Well that's if the Superintendent General didn't. Itachi was going to be furious. Sakura could already see the rage she was going to face – not physically, but the waves she was going to feel coming off him in a couple of minutes –and inwardly she flinched. She was going to end up like Miki!

 _No,_ Sakura thought fiercely. She was a field agent for a year and a half and she had known Sasuke for six years; she was used to the wrath of Uchihas. She could handle it.

Taking a deep breath, Sakura steeled herself and headed towards Conference Room One with the documents in hand. She heard a few voices from inside as her hand came in contact with the door handle, though they were muffled and impossible to make out. Taking a deep breath, Sakura opened the door, but it had only cracked open a few inches when a familiar voice caught her attention. She turned her head slightly to see Shino flirting with a policewoman with the very same paper she had given him in hand.

Immediately Sakura's anger flared and she fixed him with a glare. "Aburame!" she called. Slowly he turned his head away from the pretty woman and paled at Sakura's appearance. "Don't go too far."

His pale face became confused. "Haruno?" he asked unsure.

"I still have to kill you," she smiled politely before she turned and entered the room.

Sakura rolled her eyes and shook her head slightly in annoyance as she took a deep breath to control her anger, but the breath caught in her throat when she realized she had accidentally left the conference room door slightly ajar. Everyone in the room was staring at her. Some were looking at her like she was crazy, some were careless – Shikamaru – and others were passive, namely Itachi. That unnerved her. Though, Ino's glare was pretty dangerous at the moment too.

"Glad you finally joined us, Haruno," Shisui said calmly, almost carelessly. "Where were you?"

Sakura paused. "In my lab." She quickly looked down at the documents to busy herself. "I got nine fingerprint matches and I'm running the rest through AFIS, but there's a high chance that we won't get even half." Carefully Sakura pulled the pictures of the identified victims from her file and set them on the table the Superintendent General was sitting in behind. She was careful to keep her head down and to avoid eye contact with everyone. "Hyuuga sent me an e-mail last night. He said that some of the bodies have been there for a little over a year and any fingerprints are going to be impossible to get."

She vaguely saw Itachi nod in acknowledgement, but she didn't dare relax just yet. She kept completely still and silent as he looked over the pictures before passing them onto Shisui and Sasuke. Silence fell over the room and Sakura groaned inwardly when she realized everyone was waiting for their superior's dismissal.

Oh no! That meant they had already gone over any other new information and how to proceed. She had missed everything.

 _Note to self: have Ino catch me up,_ Sakura thought.

Eventually Itachi nodded at everyone. "Dismissed."

Immediately Sakura spun on her heels and began briskly walking toward the door, fully intent on getting out of the room before anyone could stop her, but before she could make it to the door, Itachi called for her. "Haruno, a moment."

She cringed visibly as Ino sent her an apologetic look, her glare gone, before her blonde friend hurried passed her and through the door. It didn't take long for everyone to file out of the room and when the door finally closed shut behind Sasuke, Sakura turned to face her boss, unsure of what to expect.

Itachi was still sitting behind the front table, his expression still impassive and his posture unchanged. He was leaning back in his chair; his fingers laced together and resting calmly in his lap. His eyes were intense and dark, focused only on her as if she were the only thing in the world and right now Sakura knew that was moderately true; but as if her mind was against her, Sakura began thinking how nice the crimson, button-up shirt under his black suit looked against his complexion.

Fiercely Sakura shook herself and focused. Itachi was still waiting for an explanation.

"I apologize for my tardiness," Sakura said, bowing slightly. Purposely she kept her sight on the ground and immediately averted them afterwards to her hands to keep her eyes anywhere but on her gorgeous superior. "I promise it won't happen again."

"I shall hope not," Itachi finally said. His voice was as always silky smooth and as always, it caused her stomach to fill with butterflies. "You're dismissed."

Sakura relaxed visibly and let out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding before she bowed again. She made to grab the file off the table, but Itachi's long fingers wrapped around her wrist, effectively stopping her from retrieving it. Quickly her eyes snapped upwards in surprise and confusion, but he shook his head slightly. "I meant for the day, Haruno."

Her mouth parted slightly and she stared at her boss in disbelief. Her tired mind scrambled as it tried to find some argument as to why she couldn't leave, but she came up blank. She had finished all her work last night – early this morning – and no new evidence had been handed over to her yet because of her lack of cases. "What? Why?" she said, stalling for a reason to stay.

"Because I need my officers working at their best," he said smoothly.

Sakura pierced her lips together as they stared one another down. "Then why did you let me work through the night?"

He paused for a split second, but it was long enough for Sakura to notice. "I did not know that was your intention."

Something close to accomplishment made her warm all over in satisfaction at being able to make him hesitate, but it quickly faded and she realized the only heat she was now feeling was coming from her wrist where he was holding her captive. An immediate blush began to tint her cheeks and she pulled her wrist out of his grip casually. As reluctant as she was to pull away she knew if she didn't, she wouldn't be able to keep her blush at bay and Itachi would see; then being alone with him would be really awkward.

"Go home, Haruno," Itachi finally said, breaking Sakura from her inner thoughts. "Sato will take up your work."

She opened her mouth to argue, but thought better of it and finally nodded in resigned agreement. She would lose this battle so it would be a waste of time to argue. Quietly she opened the door and started to walk out of the conference room.

"Oh and Haruno," Itachi called. She glanced over her shoulder to see a faint smirk on his face. "Don't be late."

Sakura rolled her eyes in reply, but there was a small smile on her lips. Then she exited the room and walked to the elevator to grab her things from her and Sasuke's lab. As she waited for the doors to open, she glanced over her shoulder and waved slightly when she caught Ino's eye, but the contact broke when Itachi walked out of the conference room and stepped between the two. His small smirk was still present and when he spotted her it widened a fraction before he turned towards his office. Only after Sakura stepped into the elevator and the doors started to slide shut did she stick her tongue out at his back childishly. Though when he glanced over his shoulder, she gave a start and quickly looked away in embarrassment. Thank the lord she was going home.

* * *

"And then he got me a dozen roses," Ino continued as Sakura sipped her mocha. "It was so romantic."

"Uh huh," Sakura replied as the elevator doors closed before they were lifted upwards towards the eighteenth floor.

Sakura was only half-listening to what her best friend was saying as they waited for the doors to open again. As much as she loved her blonde friend, sometimes all the soppy, love stories were too much for her, even if she was just reminiscing of her and Shikamaru's six month anniversary last night. Still, she didn't need all the details. Somehow Ino's stories always led Sakura to become a little jealous. Maybe it was because her own love-life was non-existent and she didn't want to hear what she was missing out on…

 _No,_ Sakura shook her head. No, that definitely wasn't it.

Sighing, Sakura stepped out of the elevator after Ino, keeping her eyes fixed on the patterns the white tiles made; though she stopped abruptly when a pair of shoes stepped in front of her, blocking her path. "Officer Haruno."

Slowly Sakura looked up. She groaned mentally when she came face-to-face with Shino. Annoyed she rolled her eyes and looked away from him only to realize he was holding a file, but that wasn't what caught her attention. His knuckles were white from his death grip on the papers and she noticed he was shifting restlessly from foot-to-foot as if he was afraid to say something. Though after the stunt he played on her last week, it was probably a good thing he looked so nervous.

"What do you want, Aburame?" she asked coldly.

"I…I wanted to apologize for last week."

Sakura stared. He couldn't be serious, could he? Shino wasn't someone who cared about hurting other's feelings to get what he wanted and Sakura sure as hell knew he wasn't coming to apologize because he felt bad. No, she realized someone had definitely forced or guilt-tripped him into saying sorry to her. But the only people she could think of with that type of power – or persuasion she guessed – was Shisui or Sasuke and neither of them would care enough. _Unless_ , it was the Superintendent General.

"Haruno?" Shino asked.

Sakura retrained her eyes on him and nodded. "It's fine," she said carelessly. Then her eyes hardened. "Just don't do it again." Then she quickly caught up to Ino who was waiting for her impatiently outside the usual conference room.

Sakura could tell Ino was about to start ranting to her about something, but she cut off abruptly as they stepped inside the room. Almost immediately Sakura turned to look at Itachi and from the small smirk on his face she knew her suspicions were correct; it had been him.

"Yamanaka, Haruno, where have you been?" Sasuke asked.

Ino lifted her drink. "Coffee."

"Didn't you get my text?" he asked almost impatiently.

Sakura and Ino glanced at one another. "No," they replied in unison.

The youngest Uchiha glared in frustration as Sakura gazed around the room again. She noticed everyone was holding a piece of paper in hand; some were reading it, marking up the paper, as others watched the confrontation. Though what really caught her attention were the three officers standing off the Superintendent General's left. Two of the three were wearing suits; the other had a comfortable t-shirt and jeans. All three of them drew her attention and she allowed her eyes to slide over the three of them as Itachi talked Sasuke into calming down.

The most appropriately dressed had blue hair and he was extremely tall; easily over six feet. His face had a rather ragged look to it and she could vaguely make out three scars under his eyes on each cheek. His black eyes were dark and sinister-looking, but the aura he was giving off was what made her skin crawl.

Sakura wondered how the red-head next to him wasn't shaken. Honestly, he looked like a weakling next to his tall friend – if that's what they were – only coming up to about his shoulders. His pale green eyes were lazily gazing about the room, observing and watching everything; the action reminded her of Itachi. The red-head's grey suit fitted his body nicely and now that Sakura actually looked she could see the slight muscle under the cloth; he wasn't as weak as he looked, that was for sure.

Then on the far end was the casually dressed blond she had noticed earlier. Even his slouched, hands-shoved-in-his-pockets stance was far too casual for where he was. His long blond hair fell over his shoulders and stopped at the middle of his shoulder blades while his bangs covered his left eye completely. Half of his hair was pulled back into a topknot on the crown of his head, keeping the rest of it from falling in his face. His strange and unprofessional appearance made Sakura realize he was a friend or Itachi wouldn't have even let him into the building.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she watched him brush the hair out of his eyes with long, slim fingers; the fingers of an artist. She made eye contact with him for a split second and her breath caught slightly when she felt herself get pulled into the mesmerizing ocean of blue that were his eyes. Though a moment later Sakura fiercely ripped her eyes away from his and instead casually swept her eyes over the three mysterious men before returning to Sasuke as he continued to glare at the two females.

"Where are your phones?" Sasuke finally asked.

Ino shrugged. "Missing."

"Dead."

Sakura's reply was distracted and she unconsciously followed Ino to the seats next to her boyfriend before picking up one of the many papers. She read over the letter and stared at it in confusion.

"What is this?" Ino asked.

"It's a letter," Shisui said.

Sakura saw Ino open her mouth to snap something, but the red-head spoke before she could utter a word. "This letter was sent to us from the East Coast Killer. It -."

"I'm sorry, who?" Sakura interrupted.

"The serial killer," the unknown blond supported.

She side glanced at Ino. She was watching everything with a rare, blank look that Sakura knew she used whenever she didn't want attention. Almost immediately Sakura knew Ino had made up the name. She vaguely remembered hearing it on TV last night, but she had been so exhausted by work she hadn't thought anything of it and went straight to bed. For some reason Sakura was slightly disappointed. She would have thought Ino would have thought of something more creative than that.

"Like I was saying," the red-head continued. "The killer sent us this letter this morning. We believe they're-."

"How was it sent?" Sakura interrupted again.

His pale green eyes flashed for a second before they turned to Itachi to explain. The Superintendent General looked vaguely amused for a second before he turned his sights on her. "It was mailed through the postal service. I have sent Hatake and Inuzuka's teams to investigate the return address, but they reported the place was empty," Itachi answered in a smooth voice.

Sakura nodded slightly in acknowledgement. She vaguely heard the new officer continue, but she wasn't really listening as she thought about it. Obviously they knew how to avoid being found while sending them messages, which unfortunately meant they were smart. Unless…

"Hyuuga said some of the victims died a little over a year ago," Sakura said. "Could it be possible he wrote this letter back when he made his first kill?"

Itachi stared at Sakura for a long while. Silence fell over the room as the Superintendent General weighed the option. His beautiful obsidian eyes seemed to pierce into her very soul as he mulled over her thoughts before he finally nodded in approval. "Nara, run the database for any residents of that apartment; start from four years ago to the present." Shikamaru groaned in response. "Yamanaka, Shisui will speak with you about what goes through the media. Sasuke, you and Hyuuga are to find what blade killed our victims. I need to know if it was the same blade or different ones." Then his eyes turned back to Sakura. "Haruno, the envelope from this letter is in your lab; see if you can pull some prints or saliva off the seal." Slowly he glanced around the conference room, making eye contact with each individual. "The rest of you, get some identities to our John and Jane Does. Dismissed."

Everyone stood and bowed to their superior before they filed out of the room. Sakura made for the elevator to head to her lab, but before she could reach out and press the down button a hand reached out and beat her to it. Startled, she snapped her head around to find the mysterious blond was standing next to her, grinning boyishly.

"Hi," he said.

Sakura looked at him warily. "Hi?"

"What's your name?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed at his failed attempt at flirting with her. "It's customary to give your name before asking for someone else's."

He nodded slightly. "True. I'm Deidara."

"Hi," Sakura said again before she looked at the elevator, willing it to hurry. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk; she just didn't want to be hit on again. It would just be Shisui all over again and Sakura was sure the Superintendent General wouldn't let her get away with it again. _Damn…_

"So what's your name?" he asked.

She cringed. "Haruno."

"Haruno, huh?"

Out of the corner of her eyes, Sakura saw him open his mouth again, but Sasuke approached and shook his head. Deidara glanced at him and gave him a curious look, but the Uchiha gave him a sinister look. "I wouldn't hit on her. Last time Shisui did, he got a bloody nose."

"But that's Shisui," Deidara said.

"He was my superior then too," Sakura commented lightly.

That caught his attention. Deidara turned to her sharply and stared in surprise as Sakura and Sasuke walked into the elevator. Fortunately Deidara seemed to be in too much surprise to move and the doors slid closed before he could join them inside. She just hoped he wouldn't hit on her again. Otherwise she might have to get her point across physically, which in her opinion wasn't a bad thing.

* * *

With a deep sigh, Sakura sat back and stared at her computer in defeat. The monitor was showing a blinking window, informing her there were way too many fingerprints overlapping to be able to get a match. Though, that wasn't the only reason for her dismal mood. The seal on the envelope had been closed with regular tap water and to top it off, Shikamaru's research had come up empty. No one had lived in that apartment for nearly seven years and the last man to own it was now buried in Sendai's cemetery. As brilliant as her idea may have been, it still failed in the end and as her father used to tell her: only the results matter.

Slowly Sakura pushed herself into an upright position and printed off her results before she headed towards the elevator. For the first time in weeks, she was hesitant when the doors finally opened and it took her a moment to hit the button for the eighteenth floor. With a small frown, she watched the numbers on top of the door count up as she slowly closed in on her destination.

Suddenly a loud shout reached Sakura's ears, making her forgot all about her worries. Her head snapped to the doors as more raised voices sounded on the other side of the elevator. Unconsciously Sakura pulled the papers in her hand closer to her chest as the doors opened and she stepped out onto the white tiled floor carefully, What she saw made her look around in alarm.

People were yelling and screaming at one another like they were all accusing each other of being the murderer. Ino was leaning over her desk arguing with Shiranui Genma while Shino was shaking his head at something Naruto said as Neji watched with a dangerous glare. Shikamaru seemed to be the only one not present and she guessed he slipped away the moment the fights started. The Superintendent General was standing on the far side with the red-head and the blue-haired man Sakura had seen earlier. The two unfamiliar men were speaking calmly to each other – the complete opposite of the rest of the officers in the room – while Itachi watched the whole thing with a blank expression. Though, his eyes were scanning the room as if searching for something.

When she caught sight of him, Sakura quickly headed in his direction, carefully dodging around other officers on the way. At one point she had to jump out of the way of a chair as it hit from the floor from accidentally being shoved as an officer took a quick step back.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked.

Itachi turned his eyes on her but before he could speak Sasuke stopped on his other side, staring at the room with eyes probably as wide as hers. "What happened? I have people calling me asking if someone was shot."

Itachi side glanced at Sasuke for a split second before he let out a sharp whistle that left Sakura's ears ringing. Silence quickly fell over the floor as all officers stopped in their tracks and turned to their superior. Sakura watched as Itachi gazed around the room before his eyes turned to a projector she hadn't noticed earlier in the mad rush. The letter from the East Coast Killer was being projected onto a whiteboard with notes written next to it. Some words were circled and others were underlined, but she couldn't figure out what they stood for.

"This is exactly what the killer wants," Itachi finally spoke.

The redhead pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against. "Confusion and chaos," he added

Itachi nodded his agreement. "Right, Sasori." The Superintendent General turned his attention back to the enlarged letter the killer sent and pointed at a paragraph. "He's managed to tie the Chunichi Dragons baseball team in with Wiccan and the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Your points of view are all different because he has touched base with all concepts. This is exactly what he wants: confusion and chaos, as Sasori said. He knows how we work and knows it will slow down our investigation." Itachi stated before he picked up a whiteboard pen. Sakura watched him uncap the marker and write two words in his elegant script. They made her freeze.

 _Law Enforcement._

No one said anything as Itachi placed the pen down and turned back to face everyone. Sakura opened her mouth but no words came out as she and the rest of the floor stared at the Superintendent General speechless. Anyone of them – anyone in this building – could be the East Coast Killer. She could very well be best friends with the murderer. Automatically Sakura's eyes turned to Ino, but the blonde was staring at Itachi in just as much astonishment. In fact, everyone looked shocked to their core, but Itachi's latest discovery made Sakura realize anyone of them could be the killer. She just hoped that if the killer was indeed in law enforcement, it wasn't anyone in this department.

"Sasuke," the blue-haired man finally spoke. "Inform the front desk there is no need for alarm and we apologize for the fright we might have imposed."

"Uh, right, Special Agent Hoshigaki," the youngest Uchiha said before he turned and walked into a separate office.

Everything else was silent as they waited for Itachi's instruction. The Superintendent General made eye contact with the blue-haired man, who Sakura now knew as Special Agent Hoshigaki, before returning his attention to his subordinates. "This message is a fluke. Proceed as normal. If there is any suspicious activity in this department or in others report it to Uchiha Shisui. Understood?"

The officers nodded, but it was a moment before activity resumed in the normally busy floor. Sakura watched as Ino made up with Genma before she walked away, probably in search of her boyfriend to tell him exactly what happened. It took Sakura a moment to remember why she had come up, but one glance at the paper in her hand reminded her. She turned to find the Superintendent General, but found him deep in conversation with Special Agent Hoshigaki and Sasori. Sakura hesitated for a moment, realizing that rechecking her work wouldn't harm anyone. A few isolated fingerprints would be better than nothing.

With one final glance around the room, Sakura followed a few officers to the elevator and hit the button for the basement floor before she turned her gaze to the papers in her hands.

* * *

"Well if you can't give me that fingerprint, give me the other one!"

Itachi looked up from the file in his hand at the sound of Sakura's angry, frustrated voice. Quietly he stepped out of the elevator and walked into the police department's lab to find her glaring dangerously at her computer screen. He watched silently as her delicate fingers moved over the keys and drew a square around the fingerprint she wanted. The print flashed once before a note popped up on the screen.

"Insufficient data, my ass," Sakura snapped.

Angrily she pushed her chair back and stood up to pace. Itachi watched as Sakura stopped in the middle of her lab and closed her eyes. She took deep, calming breaths and visibly relaxed before she opened them again.

"Okay," she coached herself. "Partial prints can work too. They're not as good, but they still work."

Once more Sakura drew a box around the top portion of a fingerprint and hit the enter button. Another message popped up, but Sakura knocked it down and hit a series of keys before another window popped up. A wide grin spread across her face as the partial print began running through AFIS and she jumped out of her seat cheerfully. "Oh hell yes!"

With her grin still in place, Sakura turned around only to abruptly freeze when she found Itachi standing before her. A long moment of silence passed between them as Sakura froze in her victory position and stared at him with her eyes wide in shock as a bright blush flushed her cheeks. A quick look of embarrassment and surprise flashed across her face before she quickly dropped her arms to her sides once more and bowed. "Sir," she said awkwardly.

"Haruno," Itachi greeted.

When she straightened, she kept her eyes averted away from him, causing a small, amused smirk to cross his lips. Casually he closed the file in his hand and approached her computer as a name popped up and her computer dinged. At the sound, Sakura immediately forgot her embarrassment and turned around to pull up the file. He watched as her eyes widened and grew bright in excitement at the prospect of finding the victim. Itachi smiled minutely at her excitement as she retrieved the file for the fingerprint match.

Unknown to Sakura, Itachi was very aware of the fact Sakura had come to him earlier during the war upstairs to speak with him, but after everything had settled down, she had vanished before he could talk to her about her findings, or lack thereof as he had learned a few minutes ago. Since then, he had been too busy to come to her and apparently she had been stuck in her lab with every intention of finding a fingerprint.

A small stab of pity for her hit him when she pulled up the file to find the print belonged to Hoshigaki Kisame, his long-time friend and ex-partner. In fact, Itachi vaguely remembered the fingerprint had gotten there when he first grabbed the envelope from downstairs. He was fairly certain if she chose another one, his own prints would be on the envelope as well and possibly the receptionist downstairs.

Slowly Itachi glanced at Sakura as her face fell. She was staring at the computer screen miserably with her head in hands. The pink-haired woman gave a loud groan of annoyance before she took a quiet breath and slouched in her chair. "It's just your friend," she murmured almost to herself. "What is he doing here anyways?" she snapped half-heartedly.

"I asked him to help on this investigation," Itachi answered, looking over his portfolio. He stared in surprise at all Kisame's known information and realized he was already thirty, though if he was twenty-six then that was about right.

"He works for the Special Assault Team?" Sakura asked, glancing over his information. "No wonder Sasuke called him Special Agent," she seemed to be speaking more to herself than anyone else. "A fucking SAT is working with us. Holy shit."

Itachi turned his attention from the computer to stare at Sakura in surprise as she spoke to herself; he'd never noticed she had such a foul mouth before. Normally he didn't appreciate it when a person swore in his presence but when it was coming from such an innocent-looking women, he found it highly amusing.

Even more to his amusement, it seemed she didn't even know he was watching her for she gradually shook herself and turned to him. "I'm sorry. There are just too many fingerprints from being sent through the postal service and they're all overlapping."

The way her eyes dimmed to a dark green made him feel a little sorry for her as his amusement faded. He knew she had been working all day trying to find some good news to give him, but apparently there was none to give. She had done all she could and that was all he could ask for.

"What about the seal?" Itachi asked.

Sakura turned back to her computer and pulled up another window. "He used tap water."

Itachi pursed his lips together slightly as he stared at the scientific drawing of water on the screen, but eventually he sighed softly and took a step back. "Good work, Haruno. Go home. It's been a long day."

She sent him a small, apologetic smile in return. "Yes, sir."

Itachi started towards the elevator, but a memory from this morning made him stop and turn back to Sakura. "Oh and Haruno."

She turned at the sound of her name and watched him expectantly.

"Deidara has a bad left ankle," he supported.

A smile came onto Sakura's lips and she flashed him a brilliant grin. Her eyes returned to their usual deep emerald as she gave a small laugh. "Thank you, sir, but I'm hoping I won't have to know that for later."

He smirked slightly both in amusement and agreement before he nodded in response and left for the elevator. As he waited, he read Neji's report on the identified bodies, but he only made it halfway before he realized he wasn't alone. He glanced to his left to find Sakura was standing next to him in her white winter coat, texting someone. Itachi didn't say anything as they stepped into the lift and automatically he pressed the button for the eighteenth floor. It wasn't until that moment did he realize all the lights were still on in the lab.

Sakura seemed to sense his curious gaze – well as curious as his gazes could get – and she smiled and shrugged. "Last one there has to turn everything off," was her simple reply.

"Hn," Itachi said, turning back to his file.

There was a short moment of silence before he heard her shift. "Why did you make Aburame apologize to me?"

Itachi side glanced at her. Her face was carefully blank and her arms were hanging loosely at her side. He had no idea what she was thinking or what she was expecting him to say. Better play it safe. "I did not make Aburame apologize to you."

"But you did guilt trip him into it," she countered easily.

He watched her for another long moment and closed the file in his hands with a smart snap before fixing her with his full attention. "I merely had a talk with officer Aburame. What he did afterwards is completely of his own fault."

Sakura looked unconvinced and she crossed her arms slightly before she leaned her hip against the railing in the elevator. Her lips were pursed in a fine line and her eyes narrowed in observation as she watched him closely. It was obvious she didn't believe him.

She was very much like him, he realized. She had been an excellent field agent for a long time and he knew it was because of the way she watched and calculated everything before making a move. Itachi guessed she grew up with a father figure in law enforcement much like himself and began learning the simplest police training from a young age.

"I don't believe you," Sakura finally said.

Itachi gave her a look that told her to continue.

"I think you sat him down and explained to him in vivid detail of what happens when an officer doesn't get his work done on time," she explained with a small smirk. "And then you continued to explain how that will get you nowhere in life until you finally broke him down to the scared rookie he is."

Of course she was right but Itachi didn't show any indication that what she said was true. Though the smug smile forming on her lips told him she knew she was right and haughtily she turned her attention back to the numbers on the elevator.

"Hn," Itachi replied, going back to the file.

He only for a few words in before he heard her speak again. "Why do you do that?" she asked. "What does it even mean?"

Itachi slowly he glanced at Sakura and frowned slightly in confusion. "Do what?"

"That little 'hn' or whatever," she said, shaking her head in confusion. "Sasuke does it and every once and a while Shisui will too. Is it like a family thing or are you all just picking up each other's habits?"

Itachi's frown faded and he raised his eyebrow in amusement. He gave her a long stare that caused a small blush to tint Sakura's cheeks. It surprised him when he realized he rather liked the look; it brought out her flawless skin. That single thought made him realize once again just how beautiful Sakura was and he felt a small, almost insignificant stab of jealousy hit him in the stomach when he thought of how extremely lucky her boyfriend was to have found her. So far, Sakura had excelled in peaking his interest and he wanted to know more about this seemingly fragile woman.

In the past two years, Itachi had learned Haruno Sakura had a fast and quick mind with a keen eye for observation. In chaotic situations she knew how to act and her reflexes easily matched his. That had been proven when she sent a blow to Shisui a second after he made his comment with her impressive left hook.

Another strange thing Itachi had noticed was her left punch was stronger than her right even though she was right-dominant. He used to think her right swing was deadlier, but when Itachi asked Sasuke about it he just shook his head and wouldn't say anymore on the topic.

"In my defense," Itachi finally replied, "they acquired it from me."

Sakura opened her mouth in a silence, sarcastic gesture of understanding. "But what does it even mean?"

Itachi smirked slightly as the elevator doors opened and silently he stepped out of the lift with Sakura in tow. Then he sent her a small playful look over his shoulder before he walked away. The sudden silence of her footsteps made him realize she had stopped following him and one look at her reflection in one of the dark computer screens showed her open surprise. Had his look affected her so much that she had frozen mid-step? The thought that he had that much power over her made his smirk widen slightly and this time he couldn't conceal all of it.

He could have fun teasing this woman, he realized.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three  
The Evidence Locker

Sweat ran down Sakura's neck as she sprinted as fast as could on the treadmill in the basement of the Tokyo Metro Police Department. Her heart was beating erratically as it tried to pump enough blood throughout her body to keep up with her fast pace and her breath came in short, uneven pants. The sharp stabs of pain in her chest and legs hardly even hindered her as she continued to run as fast as she could for as long as she could. Honestly, Sakura was reveling in the feeling as she sprinted to one of her favorite songs. It had been so long since the last time she had run until she couldn't breathe and she loved it.

Slowly Sakura closed her eyes as she let the feeling pull her into her own little world. She could see it now. Running side-by-side with Sasuke and Naruto as they chased down a suspect on foot while Kakashi called the shots from the car. She could feel the bushes brush past her calves as she dodged the small plants and the hard wood on her hands as she gripped the top of a fence and with all her strength jumped over it-.

"Sakura!" Ino yelled, pulling the headphone from her ear.

Immediately Sakura snapped out of her daydream and pressed pause on the treadmill as her attention turned to her blonde friend. "What the hell, Ino?" she said in between pants.

Ino gave her a look. "Yeah, keep running like that, Sakura. Let's make a bet on how long it takes for your heart to give out."

Sakura glared at her and reluctantly stepped off the machine to catch her breath. She grabbed her water bottle and took a small sip as Ino stepped off her own treadmill. "Your shoulder bothering you again?"

Sakura looked up at her blonde friend in confusion and realized she had unconsciously been rubbing her right shoulder to try and sooth the old wound she got from a car accident years ago. When she realized what she was doing Sakura quickly stopped and shook her head. "It's fine."

Ino gave her a disbelieving look before she turned at the sound of an approaching person. Sakura followed her gaze and groaned mentally when she saw Deidara walk up to them in basketball shorts and a white tank top that clung to his body enough to show off his muscles. It was at that moment that Sakura realized Sasori and Kisame had also entered the gym and were both dressed to work out.

"Hey Haruno, how about a little sparing?" Deidara asked his boyish grin in place.

Sakura stared at him as her breath still came in fast pants and Ino sent him a look. "You do know she punched Shisui, right?"

Deidara's smile didn't falter. "That's why I want to spar, yeah," he said.

"I can't breathe," Sakura said in between pants.

His smile widened. "I can wait."

Sakura frowned at his persistence and glanced at Ino but her friend just shrugged and turned to watch as Sasori and Kisame started their own friendly sparring. Sakura also glanced over to watch as the two older males circled one another before they began calculatedly grabbing at one another to take them down.

Surprisingly Kisame was able to dodge most of Sasori's fierce grabs even with his massive height and managed to bring the smaller man down within a few minutes. The second round took a little longer and Sakura watched mesmerized as Sasori moved with ease, using the taller man's weight against him. He weaved around Kisame until he finally found his opening and tripped the man down onto his stomach. Just watching the two rounds reminded Sakura of her time of her time in the field with the way Naruto and Sasuke used to wrestle.

By the time the older men were done Sakura was more than ready to spar with Deidara. Plus it would teach him a lesson to back off a little. "Ready?" Sakura asked, rising to her feet.

Sakura vaguely heard the gym door open as she took another drink of her water and passed it to Ino. Deidara turned at her question and nodded before the two headed out onto the matted floor. Slowly Sakura rolled her shoulders, testing her right side before she turned to face the blond. She saw him glance at the sidelines before returning his attention to her.

"What's going on?" Sakura heard Sasuke ask.

Ino snorted. "Deidara wants to spar with Sakura."

There was a slight pause. "He's going to get his ass kicked."

Sakura smirked slightly at Sasuke's blunt comment but it disappeared as Deidara stepped towards her. He reached out to grab her wrist, but she pushed his hand away from the side and firmly hit the inner side of his joint where his hand and wrist met.

His reaction was immediate. Deidara pulled away and stepped back but Sakura was on him and she grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back. She smirked in victory, but Deidara over powered her and flipped her over his back. Sakura yelped in surprise at his strength as he switched their positions and pushed her down into a knelling position.

On reflex, Sakura quickly turned her body and used her momentum to elbow him hard in the thigh. Deidara's grip loosened slightly and easily Sakura twisted out of his grasp, landing a blow to the back of his knee, the exact side Itachi said was weak. He hit the floor with a quiet groan, but before Sakura could use his position against him he grabbed her ankle and pulled her to the floor. She yelped in surprise and hit the floor hard enough to stunt her for a moment, but it was long enough and when Sakura could finally register what was going on again Deidara had straddled her waist and pinned her wrists to the floor.

Sakura struggled against his hold but eventually relaxed when she realized it was futile. With a triumphant smirk, Deidara stood and held out his hand to help her up, but she landed a well aimed kick to his groin, causing him to double over and drop to his knees.

A loud chorus of ' _oh_ 's echoed around the room at the exact same time, causing Sakura to laugh silently. Deidara was the only one not smiling and with watery eyes, he looked up at her. "What the hell?" he cried.

Sakura shrugged and caught the ice pack Ino tossed at her. "You should learn the rules before you play the game."

She saw his confusion through his pained expression. Carefully she knelled down and held the ice in front of him. "Don't let your sparring partner up until they admit defeat." She paused. "Come to think of it, I still have yet to hear you say you give up."

Reluctantly Deidara nodded and Sakura handed him the ice pack. When she straightened Sakura was surprised to find Kisame was cracking up like it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. Sasori wasn't being as obvious, but she could see he was laughing to himself. She smiled slightly as Deidara finally dragged himself off the floor before she walked over to Ino to retrieve her water bottle.

"Hey Haruno, you want to spar?"

Sakura glanced over her shoulder to find the Kisame was standing on the edge of the mat and she smiled slightly. She was about to accept but stopped, knowing he was rather well-built and would be a whole lot tougher than Deidara.

"You might want to rethink your offer, Kisame."

Sakura's head snapped around at the sound of that voice. She stared in surprise at the Superintendent General as he walked towards them gracefully. He was still dressed in his suit and she guessed he had probably come down to find where everyone had gone.

"Yourself and Sasori against Haruno would be a much more even fight," he supported.

Sakura's jaw literally fell. Did her boss just offer for her to fight against two special agents? The way everyone was staring and smirking made her realize that yes, he had. Great. In response, Sakura glared at nothing in particular as Ino took back her water bottle and shoved her in the direction of the matted floor.

"Hey, I just sparred with Deidara. Don't I get some kind of resting period?" she asked, trying her best to suspend the match as long as possible.

"I bet five bucks on Haruno!" Ino called.

"Ten on Sasori and Hoshigaki!" Sasuke added.

Sakura rolled her eyes and glared at Ino's lack of support as she stepped into the mat. Kisame and Sasori glanced at each other before they joined her and took up a fighting stance. Sakura let out a long sigh and followed their example as more officers began circling around the mat like a high school fight.

Without warning, Kisame jumped at her and she watched for a second in surprise when she saw how fast he actually was, though her reflexes were faster and she moved out of the way as he aimed to grab her wrist. She moved to avoid him, but motion out of the corner of her eyes made her duck as Sasori too reached for her.

Sakura spent the next few minutes dodging their outstretched hands and legs as they tried to trip her, but eventually she found herself falling into a pattern that she began to follow. She ducked Kisame's hand and turned to grab Sasori's as he tried to land a firm blow to her side to stun her. Quickly she grabbed his wrist and pulled his body around herself protectively as Kisame aimed a kick at her feet.

It struck Sasori in the back of his knee and he let out a small grunt of pain as Sakura twisted herself back out of his grasp before he hit the floor. The taller man easily steadily Sasori and skirted around him before advancing on Sakura once more. She stood still as she waited for him to come nearer and when he raised his left hand to strike her, Sakura moved to dodge, but saw her mistake when he faked and brought his right down to connect with her right shoulder. The sudden shock of pain caused Sakura to groan quietly in her throat and she held her breath to stop anymore noise from escaping as she quickly stepped away from him.

With a deep breath, she pushed the pain to the back of her mind and began dancing around Kisame too quickly for him to keep up. He turned, trying to find some pattern to her motions, but she twisted around him like an over-affectionate cat around his owner's feet and she literally had him tripping over himself in minutes. She quickly ducked under Kisame's arm and kicked him in the back of the knee, sending him tumbling into Sasori who had just recovered and was about to return to the fight. Playfully Sakura raised her hands and pointed the guns she made with her hands at the two.

"Bang," she said playfully.

"Bang," another voice replied from behind her.

Confused Sakura turned around to find Deidara was copying her stance, his right hand pointed directly at her. She stared at him for a long moment before she began laughing. Slowly he dropped his hand and shook his head playfully in return before he turned to his two friends.

"I can't believe you got beat by a girl," he shook his head.

Kisame glared at him. "Yeah, you too."

Deidara gave him an incredible look. "She cheated."

"Is that what they're calling it now?" Sasuke snorted, handing Ino ten dollars.

The three special agents turned to Sasuke and stared at him, but Kisame was the first to speak. "Why don't you fight her then?"

Sasuke snorted again. "Because I know she can punch. You'll be bruised by tomorrow morning."

It looked like they were going to say more, but Itachi's cell phone went off interrupting whatever Deidara was about to say. "Uchiha," he answered.

Everyone turned to watch him as he listened to what the other end was saying, but Sakura was too far away to make out the words. She only watched as Itachi stayed silent, listening intently with an expression wiped clean of emotion. "Yes. We will be there momentarily." Then he hung up. He paused for a second deep in thought before he finally looked at Sasuke. "We've received another letter."

Sakura's brow shot straight up in surprise and she watched as everyone quickly gathered their things and followed the Superintendent General out of the gym. She followed everyone out into the hall, but instead of turning towards the elevator, she went in the opposite direction towards the showers.

"Haruno," Sasuke's voice stopped her. "The elevator's this way."

Obviously they both she knew that and was instead subtly asking where she was going. With a small smile she pointed towards the locker room. "Showers are this way."

He angled his head slightly in confusion.

"I'm only a forensic scientist, not an investigator," she clarified.

Sasuke opened his mouth, but thought better of it. "I'll come find you," he said, stepping inside the crowded elevator.

She nodded in reply and turned towards the locker rooms once more. It was only once she was alone with the hot water pouring down her body did she let the pain of her shoulder show. She cringed as she rolled it, testing its abilities, and let out a sharp hiss as a stab of pain flashed around her shoulder bone agonizingly. She gripped the railing in the stall with her left hand and let out a quiet cry as the water continued to cascade down her body.

* * *

A small sigh of relief escaped Sakura's lips as she finally finished placing her tool in its rightful place. It had taken her a couple of days with how busy she was but finally she had managed to arrange her lab back to its orderly state.

Of course, if Karin hadn't come into her lab and placed her shit anywhere she wanted, Sakura wouldn't have had to clean up in the first place. This was the exact reason why she didn't like working with that redheaded, four-eyed bitch. She always fucked with her things. Not that she would tell Itachi that – she could handle Karin – but it was still annoying.

With a soft sigh, Sakura replaced the old ice pack on her shoulder with a new one and closed her eyes as she reveled in the cold numbness that spread over her right shoulder. For a long moment, she just stood there with the old icepack in hand and the freezer door open, relaxing in the ice that was slowly easing the pain in her shoulder but eventually she opened her eyes again and threw the old pack into the freezer before she returned to her computer and reread the message the East Coast Killer had sent them earlier.

Unlike the last letter, she didn't think this letter was a fluke and neither did anyone else on the case. The words were too riddled and unclear for it to be another letter about God and baseball, plus the format of the letter was too strange. It wasn't like the paragraphed essay the killer had sent them the first time; this one was short and probably to the point if they looked at it the right way.

With a deep sigh, Sakura rubbed her eyes and reread the note, determined to find something.

" _Every memory detects names if friends remember every valued essential. Naturally languages lead it where unusual obstacles yield."_

She bit the inside of her cheek as she thought. She reread the letter a few more times before she stood and paced. "Alright, so every memory could mean the past and detects names could be a person or persons. So it's someone from the past. Though if friends remember, then it's got to be a friend from the past. And every valued essential could mean an important phrase or idiosyncrasy from that friend from the past." She smiled. "So it's an idiosyncrasy that a friend did from the past."

Sakura paused and reread the sentence. There was a long moment of silence before her smile fell. "Wait, what?" She dropped her hands to her sides and shook her head. "No.

"Okay. Sometimes people will think their friends with someone when they're not so an acquaintance from the past. If an acquaintance from the past remembers every valued essential. Valued essential could mean something important. A memento maybe?"

With a deep sigh, Sakura took a seat at her computer and stared at the screen. After the tenth try with the first sentence, Sakura had moved onto the second sentence with little success. She couldn't even remember how she'd gotten some of the answers she did and slowly her mind was starting to twist the words so badly she couldn't even remember the original message.

"Haruno," a voice said, breaking through her confusion.

Slowly Sakura turned in her chair and glanced over her shoulder to find an anxious-looking Shino was standing in the doorway. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit with black 'TMPD' letters printed on the back. She could tell he had been working in the evidence locker before he came here; officers only wore those when working with cars and engines.

"I was wondering if you could help us for a little bit. We're a little unsure about a few things," Shino explained slowly.

Strangely enough a wave of relief swept over Sakura and she nodded eagerly. Anything to get her away from this letter for a little while; it felt like her mind was scrambled far too much to be put back together correctly. One glance at the clock told her she had been working on this for three hours and deserved a break.

"Yeah, sure," Sakura smiled. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

Shino nodded his thanks before he disappeared out the door. Sakura let her smile fade and she sighed before she locked her computer and pulled the ice pack out of her shoulder. She replaced it with a newer one before she headed down the hall towards the evidence locker.

* * *

Everyone settled into their normal seats as Itachi glanced around the conference room casually. He immediately noticed two seats were empty at the tables, one being Genma's and the other Sakura's. He knew Genma had left early for a family emergency, but where Sakura was he had no idea. A few hours earlier, Itachi had heard Sasuke telling the pink-haired forensic scientist about the meeting so he was slightly surprised that she had yet to arrive.

"Where's Haruno?" Shisui asked from his left.

Itachi followed his older cousin's gaze to Ino and the blonde gave him a confused look. "I don't know. She's been downstairs all day." Smoothly Ino pulled her new phone out of her pocket and flipped it open. "She hasn't left me any messages."

"Call her," Sasuke said calmly.

Ino nodded and stood to leave, glancing at Itachi for permission, but he shook his head once. "Put it on speaker phone."

He was just as curious, if not more, as everyone else as to her whereabouts and he wanted to know her exact words. It almost disturbed him with how curious he was about her as of lately. Never in his life had he found someone as interesting and he had never held an attraction for anyone the way her did towards her. Itachi was not someone to involve himself with a person's personal life, but recently that was exactly what he wanted with Sakura, whether she knew it or not.

It was extremely unnerving for him, no matter how hard he tried to hide it, and the worst part was he didn't know if she was romantically attached to someone. When he eavesdropped on Ino and Sakura's conversation, Ino is usually telling her friend about her home-life. Sakura never returned the stories for ones of her own. Over the years, Itachi had learned Sakura didn't like to play her life story on high and liked to keep her personal affairs to herself so as far as he knew she could be hiding some boyfriend at her house without him or anyone else knowing it.

Of course, he could always ask Ino about Sakura's love life, but she was sure to tell everyone he had been inquiring about her best friend and that was something he definitely didn't need at the moment. Especially not with the East Coast Killer case going on.

"Hello?" a voice said, breaking Itachi from his thoughts.

He stared at Ino's phone in confusion when a male's voice spoke. He brought his gaze to Ino's face and saw her own expression matched what he was feeling. "Is Sakura there?" Ino asked slowly.

"Yeah, hold on," the male voice said. "Haruno, your phone rang!"

There was a pause on the other end. "So you decided to answer it?"

Itachi felt his confusion grow when he heard Sakura's voice as if she was speaking from a distance. There was a loud drill in the background and some shouts were heard, but they were too far away to make out.

"Put it on speaker," Sakura called.

"Already is," the mystery man replied.

"Thanks, Naruto." Sakura paused. "This is Haruno."

Itachi saw Ino open her mouth to speak, but Sasuke beat her to it. "Haruno, where the hell are you?"

There was a slight pause. "The evidence locker. What's going on?"

"You appear to be late to a previously scheduled meeting," Itachi replied calmly.

"What?" Sakura asked. She paused. "Oh shit! Um…yeah, I'll be right there." There was some shuffling in the background but it was too quiet for him to make it out. "Aburame, I've got to go. Call if you need me for anything." She was speed-talking now. "Give me ten minutes," she told them.

"You've got five," Sasuke snapped.

Sakura paused. "Yes, sir," she said icily before she hung up.

Sasuke glared at Ino's phone as Itachi slid his gaze over to his younger brother and pursed his lips together to hide his amusement at the whole situation. Sasuke caught his look and glared at him as well as silence fell over the room. When Sakura finally entered the room, Itachi's amusement faded. She was wearing an orange jumpsuit with black 'TMPD' letters on the back. Some places on her clothes were covered in oil and grease and her hair was pulled back into a messy bun. Her hands were rummaging through some files while she used her shoulder to support her phone as she spoke rapidly. She was obviously incredibly busy.

"Yeah, wait what? No I never said-. Never mind. Listen I'll be back down there when I finish what I'm doing," Sakura said quickly.

There was murmuring on the other end.

"No, I have to go-," Sakura started. She waited as the person on the other end spoke but eventually she cut in. "No, I have to go," Sakura repeated forcefully. "No. I can't. I have to go, bye." Then she hung up. Slowly she turned to Itachi and Sasuke and bowed. "Sorry."

"Have you found anything?" Itachi asked, speaking before Sasuke could rant about her tardiness. Sakura deserved some kind of break.

"Not much," Sakura said reluctantly. "I've tried to replace the words with synonyms, but it doesn't make any sense and besides I have a feeling we're looking too hard."

Itachi's eyes narrowed slightly. "Explain."

Sakura hesitated for a moment. "If the murderer really was trying to send us a message, they wouldn't have made it so difficult we couldn't solve it."

Itachi nodded slightly in agreement before he glanced at Kisame, signaling he could say whatever he needed to but as he spoke, Itachi zoned out a little, already knowing what he was going to say. Unconsciously his eyes turned to Sakura. She was watching Kisame closely as he explained whatever he was talking about, but he noticed the slightly tense set to her shoulders. He also noticed there was a slight bulge on her right shoulder. His eyes widened a fraction when he realized it was an ice pack.

As the meeting came to a close, Itachi watched as Sakura gathered her papers into her folder while being careful to avoid jarring her shoulder. When Kisame finished and turned his gaze to Itachi for him to release everyone. "Good work today. I'll expect everyone to be here tomorrow morning at ten sharp. Understood?" When a chorus of agreement reached his ear he nodded. "Dismissed."

Slowly the officers began breaking up into groups and as Sakura started to leave the room he called her back. She paused at the sound of her name and her shoulders visibly sagged before she turned around and meandered back into the room. Sasuke and Shisui both glanced at him, but he nodded his farewell at them and waited until the door was closed before he turned back to Sakura.

"What happened?" Itachi asked bluntly.

Sakura stared at him in confusion. "I'm afraid I don't understand, sir," she replied.

"Your shoulder."

Her eyes widened slight and she opened her mouth for a moment before closing it again. "Nothing," she said.

Itachi shook his head slightly. "If you are injured, I wish to know about it."

Sakura's blank expression didn't change as she shook her head. "I'm fine."

For a long moment, Itachi just watched her, wondering if he should order her to tell him what was wrong, but he quickly dismissed that thought. He was concerned but it was his curiosity that was nagging at him to find out what was wrong.

Eventually he nodded and dismissed her. Without a word, he watched Sakura bow to him before she left the room, picking up her phone on the way out.

As the rest of the day passed, Itachi had been too involved in his own work to worry about Sakura, but as he started to leave he pressed the button for her floor to make sure she wouldn't overworked herself again like a few weeks ago. Plus he also wanted to see if she had gotten anywhere on the letter.

Strangely enough, when Itachi landed on the third floor and walked into the lab, he saw only to find Sasuke was in the room, working on a gun analysis. When he didn't notice him, Itachi backed out, half wondering if Sakura had gone home already. Though a moment later that thought was cut short as the sound of music caught his attention. Automatically he turned towards the sound and realized it was coming from the evidence locker. Slowly he moved forward and entered the large garage to find an old Mustang and an even older Toyota truck were parked side-by-side with their hood popped open.

Itachi immediately noticed Aburame Shino was on the far side of the room, looking at something under a microscope, while Uzumaki Naruto was near a workbench working on what looked to be the Mustang's engine. He couldn't see Sakura.

"Naruto, you jerk!"

Apparently she was still there though.

"What?" the blond called, turning around in his seat.

Sakura rolled out from under the Toyota and glared at him. "You didn't clean the sludge out! Do you know how disgusting this is?"

Itachi saw Naruto grin as he got up and walked over to Sakura. She looked like she was about to snap at him again, but Itachi cleared his throat. Slowly the two glanced in his direction and both of their eyes widened in surprise when they saw him. As Itachi walked towards them, Naruto stood up straight and Sakura stumbled to get back up on her feet.

"How much longer are you going to be, Haruno?" Itachi asked calmly.

Sakura stared up at him with wide eyes. "Uh…maybe an hour."

Itachi nodded. "Very well, I will want to see your progress on the letter in the morning."

The pink-haired woman opened her mouth in confusion, but it was a moment before anything came out. "Do you want to see it now?"

For a moment, Itachi just stared at her, weighing the pros and cons to her offer, but after a glance at her dirty jumpsuit and hands, he shook his head. "You're busy now. I can wait."

She merely nodded before Itachi turned and walked away. Though, on his way out, he couldn't help but smile slightly as he heard Sakura turn to Naruto and continue the friendly banter they had started before he walked in on them. But at the sound of Sakura's laughter Itachi couldn't help the small smile that adorned his lips. He didn't think he had ever heard her laugh like that, but he was glad she was still able to with the stress she was under with the case. He tried to help his subordinates get through it all by remaining calm but sometimes that wasn't enough so it was nice to know she was able to find relief somewhere else.

With that thought, Itachi returned to the elevator and headed home with a stack of paperwork to keep him busy for a good portion of the night.

* * *

Surprisingly the next time Itachi saw Sakura it was far away from the police department and in anything but a professional manner. He had been sitting at a small coffee house on the corner when the bell above the door jingled quietly. The sound had drawn his attention – he wasn't used to hearing it so earlier in the morning – and surprisingly he watched as Sakura stepped through the door.

Silently he watched her as she walked up to the counter and ordered a drink. His eyes took in the way her cheeks were flushed and her chest was heaving slightly. His eyes traveled the rest of her body and he realized she was dressed in workout clothes. It was obvious she had just finished a run.

As Sakura waited for the woman behind the counter to make her iced green tea, her eyes wandered and Itachi noticed the way she stiffened slightly and her eyes widened upon seeing him.

For a moment they both just stared at one another, but eventually Itachi nodded, causing Sakura to smile back slightly. Though almost immediately afterwards, she diverted her gaze and shifted uncomfortably as the woman finally set her drink on the counter for her.

When Sakura glanced back at him, he could tell she was about to smile again and leave, but before she had the chance to turn towards the door he beckoned her over. Hesitantly, Sakura followed his silent request and took up the empty seat across from him with a small smile. "Morning," she said quietly.

Itachi nodded at her. "Good morning. You are up and about rather early on a Saturday morning."

Sakura shrugged slightly as she drank her tea. "I always run this early on Saturdays. There aren't many people about this time of hour."

The Superintendent General nodded. Then his brows pulled together slightly. "I am here most mornings. How come this is the first time I've seen you here?"

Again, Sakura shrugged. She took another quick drink before her gaze fell out the window. "I took a different route this morning. I got bored with the scenery."

"Ah," Itachi replied quietly.

It was quiet between then for a couple of minutes, both of them changing their gazes from the world outside to the one across from them before repeating the process. Itachi didn't mind the silence too much, but his gaze began to linger on Sakura longer when he realized she was beginning to fidget.

"How is your shoulder?" Itachi asked suddenly.

Sakura turned her gaze back to him before she smiled. "Fine. Thank you for asking. It was just a minor thing."

He nodded slightly as she returned her eyes back out the window. Then he watched as she started fidgeting again by pulling on the longer strands of her hair, spinning her coffee cup, and looking anywhere but at him. It made him frown slightly. Had she always been this uncomfortable with him?

"Why do I get the feeling you don't wish to be here, Haruno?" Itachi asked calmly before taking a sip of his coffee.

Sakura looked at him abruptly with something akin to shock on her face. "Oh no," she said sincerely, shaking her head, "this is nice, sitting and having coffee with you, but I am also sweaty from my run and with you dressed like that" – she gestured at his work clothes– "I feel like a peasant from the medieval times."

Her word choice caused him to chuckle quietly before he nodded his head slightly. "That's an interesting description, Haruno," Itachi said good-naturedly.

Surprisingly Sakura didn't return his small smile and instead bit her bottom lip for a second. "It's Sakura," she said quietly.

Itachi fixed her with a penetrating stare before he nodded slightly. "Very well."

For a long moment neither of them spoke then Sakura looked down at her watch and stood slowly. "Well I should get going. I have a few errands to run with Ino and she hates it when I'm late."

Silently Itachi watched as she pushed in her chair and downed the rest of her drink before she turned towards the door. "Have a good weekend, Sakura," Itachi said slowly. He drawled out her name slowly, loving the way it rolled off his tongue.

At the sound of her name, she stopped and looked back at him with a blank expression. Slowly her lips lifted slightly into a small smile and she nodded. "Thank you."

Then she was out the door again, resuming her run, and Itachi watched her until she was around the corner and out of sight.

 _Sakura,_ he thought. He could definitely get used to calling her that.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four  
Room 665

Sakura ground her teeth together as Neji stretched out her shoulder past its limits. She might have lied a little to Itachi when she told him her shoulder was no longer bothering her or perhaps a lot she realized as her eyes began to water. She held her breath to keep from crying out as he continued to test how far he could push her shoulder and she had to mentally fight herself to stop from trying to pull out of his grasp.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," Sakura said through clenched teeth. She pinched her eyes shut and took comfort in the cold autopsy table under her thighs. Either the chief medical officer didn't care or didn't hear her for he continued to roll her shoulder painfully. It was impossible to tell with him standing behind her.

Ever since Sakura had sparred with Deidara, Sasori, and Kisame her shoulder had been continuously bothering her. She didn't know what she did, but sometime during their sprawl she had tweaked her shoulder and the pain was becoming bad enough to the point of where she woke up in the middle of the night. She had been in her office not but a half an hour ago, arranging an appointment with her doctor when Neji walked in and overheard her conversation. Of course being a doctor himself, he had offered to help her. Unfortunately, she hadn't known how painful this was going to be and she was wishing she had denied his offer.

Before Neji had started his 'therapy' on her, she had called Sasuke to tell him they might be a little late to the morning meeting, but of course he didn't actually answer his phone the only time she was going to warn him of her tardiness. She had left a voicemail and she hoped to God that he got the message before she showed up. After this pain, she really didn't want to engage in another one of his why-were-you-late rants, especially if she didn't deserve it this time.

Another jolt went through Sakura's arm, causing her to gasp out loudly. "Oh my god! Do you know what 'ow' means?"

Neji released his grip on her arm before he repositioned himself behind her and grabbed it again as her phone rang. With her free hand, she answered it. "Haruno, the woman currently sitting on an autopsy table, going through excruciating pain because her boss thought it would be amusing to place her in a spar against three special agents. How can I help you?"

There was a long pause. "Could you repeat that one more time, but more slowly?" It was Sasuke.

Sakura groaned as Neji pressed his palm into her shoulder painfully. "What do you want?"

Sasuke paused again. "Are you alright? It sounds like you're dying."

In the background, Sakura heard Naruto shout, "Sakura-chan's dying?!"

"No, shut up, dobe."

Sakura lost her voice for a second from the relief of Neji releasing her shoulder again. She took a deep breath before returning her attention to the youngest Uchiha. "I'm fine. It's just that someone wants to _dislocate my shoulder_." Sakura said the last part loudly to emphasize the pain she was going through to Neji. He didn't listen as he pushed down on her shoulder.

"Fuck!" she hissed.

"Sakura?" Sasuke asked worriedly.

"I'm fine," she ground out. "Hyuuga I'm going to kill you if you don't kill me first."

"This injury is old, Haruno," Neji finally said. "You have adhesive capsuliitis. I need to stretch your shoulder for the pain to go away and you have a slight AC separation. I need to realign your shoulder."

" _What?_ " Sakura asked seriously, glancing over her shoulder.

Neji didn't reply as he continued to focus on her shoulder.

"I saw you called, Sakura," Sasuke continued, not hearing their conversation.

Sakura took a deep breath. "Do you even check your voicemail? I said Hyuuga and I were going to probably be late to the morning meeting."

"Why?"

Sakura glared at Neji over her shoulder. "Because we have to dislocate my shoulder."

Sasuke didn't seem to get it. "Funny, Sakura. How late are you planning on being?"

A sharp pain shot through her shoulder as Neji pressed down sharply. More stinging jolts sprouted from her shoulder and spread down her arm and through her chest as Neji fixed her shoulder. Her eyes watered and all breath left her lungs as the pain fully registered in her mind.

"Oh my fucking god!" she gasped out.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked. "It sounds like you're losing your virginity."

Sakura paused at that. She wanted to say "No, it didn't" but decided against it. "That's unlikely," she replied instead. "I lost that a long time ago."

This time Sasuke paused. "When?"

The pain slowly started to ebb as Neji massaged her shoulder. She sighed slightly and closed her eyes tiredly as her mind sent out endorphins to relieve the pain in her shoulder. "I am so not having this conversation right now."

"How about over lunch?" Sasuke asked sarcastically.

If Sakura could find the energy she would've glared. "Hanging up now," she replied, hitting the END button on her phone.

As she placed her phone in her pocket, Neji grabbed both of her shoulders and pulled her back slightly. "Lay down. You're going to be tired for awhile."

Sakura complied and watched through heavy eyes as Neji moved around to collect his evidence for the morning meeting. She wasn't sure how long she laid there until a thought crossed her mind. "I hope you cleaned this table before I laid on it."

Neji didn't turn to look at her. "Oops," he said. "I knew I was forgetting something."

Sakura closed her eyes tiredly. "Why is everyone so sarcastic?" she asked, thinking back to a couple of weeks ago when she had been in the elevator with Itachi and the phone call she had just had with his brother.

She heard Neji pause for a moment. "It is possible everyone is trying to handle the East Coast Killer case at the moment."

Sakura pursed her lips together. She hadn't thought of that before. It was highly possible. Ever since Itachi had concluded the murderer was law enforcement everyone had been on edge, trying to be polite to each other while trying to seem as unsuspicious as possible. The atmosphere was weighing on everyone on the eighteenth floor. She could feel it and she was hardly ever on the floor anymore with all the evidence she needed to process.

Taking a deep breath, Sakura opened her eyes and forced herself to sit up even as her mind gripped onto sleep stubbornly. "I think we should get to that meeting."

Neji glanced at her and nodded. He started gathering files as Sakura disappeared into her lab and grabbed her own paperwork. She quickly downed her forgotten cup of coffee before she hurried into the hallway. A bright smile touched her lips when she saw Neji was in the elevator, holding the door open for her. He had waited, unlike someone else she knew.

"Thanks," she murmured as they rode up the floors.

He only nodded in response.

When the doors opened, they headed towards the conference room and slipped inside without drawing too much attention. Sakura quickly took her seat next to Ino while Neji sat at the chair opposite of her. Itachi glanced at her briefly and nodded slightly in greeting before returning his attention to Shisui who was giving out the latest discoveries.

After listening to him speak for a while, Sakura eventually turned her attention to the message the killer had sent in a week ago. The time passed slowly as she tried going over the message again, rewriting it and look at it from different perspectives. She hardly noticed when Shisui sat and Sasuke took his turn. His voice blended into the background as she thought and analyzed the message.

Eventually Sakura sighed and looked up, momentarily giving up on the message. Sasuke continued the usual morning debriefing before Itachi took over and concluded it. When he finally dismissed everyone, Sakura collected up her papers and headed for the door.

Like usual, she made for the elevator and waited patiently for the doors to open. When they finally did, Sakura stepped inside and pressed the button for her lab and looked up to see Sasuke was walking towards her. Automatically, she held the door and waited for him to step inside before removing her hand from the entrance.

Silently they both rode the elevator down and stepped into the lab before they each moved to their own respective sides to begin working. For her routine, Sakura began matching DNA to the evidence they had collected before she moved back to the letter as she waited for the results.

Once again, she began trying to read the letter backwards and forwards and upside down and every way she could think of. She had only been working for about an hour or so when Sasuke finally spoke: "So are you going to tell me how you lost your virginity?"

Sakura gave him a look. "Why are you all of a sudden obsessed with it?"

Sasuke shrugged as he pulled out a bullet and compared it to the one he had just shot a few minutes before. "I don't know. I guess I just realized you never told me."

Her eyebrow rose. "And why would I?"

He just shrugged again. "Because we're friends."

Rolling her eyes, Sakura pulled up the Word document that had the killer's letter typed up and reprinted it so she could write all over it again. "Well if we're such good friends, why don't you tell me how you lost yours?"

Sasuke didn't even hesitate. "It was during our freshman year in college. Ino and I got drunk and did it in Naruto's bedroom."

If Sakura had been holding something she would have dropped it. She turned to look at him sharply, but he was focused on what he was doing, not bothering to even look at her. "Are you serious?" Sakura asked.

He looked up and stared at her blankly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

She frowned slightly before turning back to her own work. "I always thought Ino lost it to Shikamaru."

There was a quiet clinking noise as Sasuke worked. "She did. I was her second."

"Oh," Sakura murmured quietly. Then she hesitated. "Wait, Ino lost it before you did?" She started laughing, making Sasuke glare at her.

"Why is that so surprising?" he asked defensively.

She just grinned cheekily. "The big, hotshot Uchiha Sasuke lost his virginity after Yamanaka Ino? That is unexpected."

His glare darkened slightly. "Well are you going to tell me about you now?"

Sighing softly, Sakura returned to the letter in her hands, but she only stared at it without really seeing it. "It was my sophomore year in college. His name was Gaara. He was helping me study for our final the next day and I don't know what happened. The next thing I knew we were on his couch naked." She smiled at the memory and laughed quietly. "I'm not sure how, but I aced my final and afterwards we had congratulatory sex." Then she sighed. "I'm not sure what happened, but a few weeks later, we just stopped talking and then I stopped seeing him around campus all together. After I graduated college, I went to work at the Kanazawa department and ironically enough he was there too."

Sasuke made a quiet noise in the back of his throat. "That's awkward."

She just shrugged. "It was. Until he bought me coffee and we became friends again."

Sasuke huffed in quiet amusement for they both knew she loved people who bought her coffee before he returned to his work. Sasuke was mostly silent after their conversation, allowing for Sakura to continue to think in peace.

About a half an hour later, she had to print out another piece of paper and begin again having used up all the extra white space on the last paper. Sh sighed to herself and rested her head in her hand. _I feel like L from Death Note,_ she thought as she reread the message. With her head tilted slightly down she had to keep pushing her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose when they slid off.

She could just imagine herself sitting in the chair with her knees drawn to her chest as she ate some type of junk food. _L, do you know the reaper that eats only red apples?_ She smiled to herself as she saw the letters on the page. Sakura even turned to page sideways as if she were reading it just like L.

Then she froze.

 _Could it really be that simple…?_

" _Every memory detects names if friends remember every valued essential. Naturally languages lead it where unusual obstacles yield."_

" _Y_ ," Sakura wrote.

She sat back in her chair and watched the letters carefully as Sasuke stood and walked to the back of the lab. Her eyes narrowed in confusion and she stared at the random letters before her as she thought.

And then it dawned on her.

Sakura's eyes widened as realization hit her. Hard.

Slowly she rewrote the letters backwards, her eyes becoming wider as the random letters soon turned into a simple message. She stared at the words blankly as she said to herself, "You will never find me."

"Did you say something?" Sasuke asked from the back room.

Sakura didn't answer. She stood abruptly and sprinted from the lab, taking the paper with her. She pressed the up button for the elevator and breathed out in relief when the doors opened quickly. Hurriedly she walked inside and pressed the button for the eighteenth floor before she turned to look down at the paper again as her heart raced.

That had to be it. That had to be what the message meant she was sure, but that didn't stop her from rereading her work over and over again until the doors opened again. Quickly she rushed out and scanned the room for Itachi, but when she didn't see him, she immediately hurried towards his office.

She knocked loudly three times and waited for his reply to enter. When she walked through the door she saw he was sitting behind his desk typing on his computer as his three old friends sat on the couch at the far end of the room quietly talking among themselves over a couple of open files.

But she hardly spared them a glance. "I did it," she said.

Slowly Itachi's gaze slid from his computer to her. "Did what?"

"The letter," she said quickly. "I figured it out."

Immediately the three behind her quieted as Itachi's full attention turned to her. His left eyebrow was raised slightly in surprise but it quickly vanished to be replaced by expectation. Sakura knew what that look meant and immediately she stepped forward to hand him her paper.

"You will never find me," Itachi read quietly. He pursed his lips together for a moment before he sighed. "That's less than unhelpful."

At his statement, Sakura felt her excitement instantly vanish as she stared at Itachi speechlessly. Did he really feel that way? Had all her hard work really been that much of a waste? It's not like she knew the letter was going to do nothing to further the case but at least she did figure it out so they wouldn't have to keep wasting time on it.

"Are you sure that's what it says?" Kisame asked, rising from his seat to approach the desk.

Sakura nodded, her eyes never wavering from the paper in Itachi's hands. "I'm positive," she said, her voice quiet with her loss of enthusiasm.

"Well at least it tells us one thing," Sasori said, getting up to join Kisame to take the paper from Itachi. "Our killer is arrogant. That could be his downfall."

Deidara snorted from his place on the couch. "Well apparently it hasn't been if the bastard is still running around out there, yeah."

"Patience," Itachi said calmly. "All killers eventually falter sometime and we will be waiting for when this one does."

Kisame nodded in agreement before he sighed. "I'm going to go inform everyone else."

Itachi nodded before Kisame left with Sasori right behind him. Deidara took a moment to collect the files he and his two friends/co-workers had been going over before he left, closing the door behind him.

The room lapsed into silence as Sakura stared at the wall and Itachi stared at her. She bit the inside of her lip as she grew annoyed. It had taken them over a week to figure out the letter and all they got was that the killer was a cocky asshole? She felt like she had just wasted all her time.

"Why do you look so upset?" Itachi suddenly asked, breaking the silence.

Sakura breathed out sharply through her nose before she looked at him and shook her head. "I just wasted a week for something that doesn't help us," she said in a cold voice.

Slowly Itachi stood and came around his desk to stand in front of her. His lips parted slightly before he closed them again and breathed through his nose. "Sometimes things like this happen," he said slowly. "You work hard and it feels like you did not go anywhere."

Sakura shook her head again. " _Feels_ like we didn't go anywhere?" she said frustrated. "We didn't."

"Didn't we?" Itachi asked. "Think about it, Sakura. Because you figured the letter out we no longer need to focus on it. Every investigator on this case can stop wasting their time here late at night and go home to their families or focus on something else. On top of that," he continued, "we now have a basic understanding of the killer's personality. You did more than you realize."

She looked away and breathed out sharply before she turned her hard gaze back to him. "Then why does it feel like I've failed?"

Itachi pursed his lips together. "Because you set your expectations too high," he said softly. "You expected to find a lead that would send us straight to the killer and you did not."

His words made her feel like an idiot. She should have known the killer wouldn't have let themselves be caught so easily, but before she could beat herself up too badly, Itachi rested a hand on her shoulder, causing her to turn her eyes back to his face. "But," he said slowly, "you did figure the message out, and I am impressed."

His praise made warmth spread throughout her chest and suddenly all her frustration slowly disappeared as she smiled slightly, and for a moment Itachi returned it with one of his own. The adorable, crooked smile he gave her made a small blush spread across her cheeks and her own smile widened a little bit more.

She was sure Itachi was about to say something else when a knock sounded at the door and someone entered without waiting for permission. When Sakura turned to look, she found Shisui standing in the doorway with his mouth opened like he wanted to say something. "Uh, did I interrupt something?"

The hand on her shoulder fell as Sakura shook her head. "No," she replied.

Something flashed across Shisui's eyes before he turned to Itachi. "Mind if I steal her? Sasuke said he needed Sakura for something downstairs."

Sakura turned to Itachi as he shook his head. Shisui nodded once before he turned to Sakura and waited for her. She followed him out of Itachi's office and as she closed the door, she glanced at Itachi again to see the same small smile was on his face once more. She returned it quickly, feeling much more confident than a couple of minutes ago before she finally closed the door and followed Shisui back down to the lab.

* * *

It was well into the evening when Sakura finally shut down her computers and headed out for the day. For the first time in a long time she waited patiently for the elevator doors to open and found herself rather calm and unhurried which was strange for how long as she had been at work.

When the doors finally did open, she walked inside and was about to push the button for the ground floor when a voice asked her to hold the doors. Immediately, Sakura's finger hit the black button that held the doors open as Neji slipped inside next to her. He murmured a quiet thanks and she smiled before she allowed the doors to close.

"So I heard you solved the letter," Neji said after a couple of moments.

Sakura glanced at him and smiled as she nodded. "Yeah. Though, unfortunately we didn't learn anything from it."

Neji made a sound of agreement in the back of his throat. "Yes, I heard about that as well. It's unfortunate, but at least the investigators no longer have to waste their time working on it."

Sakura nodded again. "That's true."

"I'm curious," Neji said after a moment.

Sakura glanced at him in confusion. "About what?"

"How did you solve it?"

The pink-haired woman was quiet for a moment before she shrugged. There was no way she was going to tell him she was a Death Note fan. She'd never hear the end of it. So instead she replied: "It was just a thought."

Neji nodded slightly before the elevator doors open up on the ground floor, allowing for Sakura to make her exit and leave for the day. She walked to her car quickly and buckled her seatbelt before she headed towards home and some much needed relaxation.

About a half an hour later, Sakura had eaten some dinner and was getting herself ready for bed. The sound of rushing water was cut off abruptly as Sakura shut the faucet off. She threw her toothbrush into her drawer before she took the tie out of her hair and brushed the tangles out of her pink locks. Afterwards, she set her brush down quietly before she turned off the light and walked out of the bathroom.

Sakura hardly noticed that all of her lights were out as she walked down the hall through her dark apartment towards her bedroom. She knew her place well enough that the absence of light hardly hindered her. When she was younger, the dark used to scare her like every other child, but since she was placed in foster care after her parents' deaths she got used to it. Her foster parents used to work at night so when they left, she used to disappear into her room and just listen as the darkness closed in around her.

When Sakura felt that she had taken enough steps to reach the end of the hall, she lifted her hand and opened her bedroom door before she stepped inside. Quietly she walked towards her bed and pulled the covers back before she sat on the edge and turned her attention to her clock. She needed to set her alarm. Sasuke would probably kill her tomorrow if she showed up late again.

As she reached for the buttons, something in the air seemed to change. She froze and her fingers stilled over her alarm clock settings as she strained her ears for any unusual sound. It wasn't so much as she saw or heard anything out of the ordinary, but she felt it. She was as sure as hell that something wasn't right and it was bothering her. Her nerves were agitated and it was making her suddenly extremely edgy.

Silently Sakura got off her bed and flinched slightly as the old floorboards creaked under her sudden weight. She slid her gun off her dresser silently and clicked the safety off. As quietly as she could, Sakura stepped back into the hallway with her gun at the ready. Her eyes ran over everything as she forcefully kept her breathing even and silent. All of her senses were on high alert as she stepped towards the front of her apartment.

Carefully Sakura stepped into her little kitchenette and scanned the room for anything strange. She sighed silently and lowered her gun when she was sure she was alone. Though for whatever reason, her nerves still weren't satisfied. It was probably best to sleep with her gun tonight.

Slowly Sakura turned around to head back to her room only to be forcefully grabbed from behind. The suddenness of it caused Sakura to drop her gun and it hit the floor with a loud clatter. A metallic ringing echoed in her ears a moment before something cold and sharp was pressed firmly to her throat.

It was a knife.

Sakura felt herself start to slip into a state of panic, but then she forced her mind to stay clear even as her body tensed up and her breathing grew erratic. Her mind ran through multiple sceneries of how the next few moments could play out – most ending in her death – as she forced herself not to move a muscle. She could feel the person breathing on her neck, but it was more of a warm heat than an actual breeze; they were wearing a mask of some sort.

"Who are you?" she asked breathlessly.

They replied by tightening their grip on her arm painfully. She bit back a yelp of pain and stayed motionless as they continued to stand in the entrance of her kitchen silently. She could feel the rough fabric of their clothes on her back and she knew her head was resting somewhere close to their shoulder. They were probably about a head taller than her.

Then a thought wondered into her mind.

"Are you the East Coast Killer?" she murmured, feeling her heart rate quicken slightly.

The masculine huff of amusement in her ear made her realize it was. Dread so powerful it nearly knocked the breath from her settled in her stomach when she realized how dangerous of a situation she was in. He was easily stronger than her with his height and the muscle she could feel through his clothing. Not to mention he already had a disadvantage on her as she felt his blade press further into her neck, breaking the skin. The warm trickle of blood ran down her neck in a small stream as she stood completely still, barely daring to breathe.

Sakura swallowed hard. "Are you here to kill me?"

He was quiet for a moment before he gave another small huff. That was definitely a yes.

Sakura let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding as his grip on her arm loosened slightly to relieve some of the painful pressure he had been applying. She closed her eyes slowly and strangely enough she found she wasn't afraid. The situation suddenly didn't scare her. If she were to die, she would be with her parents.

For some reason, that gave her hope.

 _No!_ a voice in the back of her head suddenly screeched. She would not allow herself to accept the fact that she was going to die. She had a job to do and she had to get this killer so he didn't murder anyone else. Besides in the chance that she did get away, how many lives could she save with the information she now knew about him?

Slowly Sakura reopened her eyes and gazed around her kitchen quickly as she searched for some type of weapon to use against him. Her eyes went to her gun. It was still resting on the floor not too far away. If she could get to it then there was a chance she could shoot him and kill him, or at the very least incapacitate him.

It was risky, but if he was going to kill her anyways then she had no choice.

Slowly Sakura closed her eyes and relaxed her body as much as she could before she took a deep breath. Then she snapped her eyes opened and rammed her free elbow into his stomach with as much power as she could muster.

He gasped out loudly and his grip on her almost disappeared completely. She felt the knife on her throat slacken and she ripped herself out of his grasp as adrenaline flooded through her system before she dove head-first at her gun. A painful, slicing sting slid across her neck and there was an immediate gush of blood as the knife caught her throat, but she ignored it as she reached for her gun.

Her fingers closed around the handle, but before she could turn on her back and shoot, he grabbed her wrist and flipped her over. The shine of something on his jacket caught her attention and she started with wide eyes as she made out the TMPD on the badge. Her mouth opened in absolute shock, but before she could do anything, he raised his blade and swung downwards. She tried to move out of the way, but the blade made contact with the side of her stomach. A silent scream left her mouth as he pulled his knife out and prepared to stab her again.

Then a knock sounded at her door.

The killer froze and looked towards the sound before he turned and ran towards her back door.

"Sakura, open the door. I need to talk to you." It was Sasuke.

Sakura opened her mouth to call for him, but the pain racking her body stole her voice. Instead she raised her gun and aimed it at the killer's retreating form before she fired. The loud blast echoed through her apartment. She relaxed on her back and closed her eyes as she heard her back window shatter. The gun fell from her limp fingers and hit the floor as pain coursed through her body. It felt like every molecule in her body was being ripped from her very soul.

"Sakura?!" Sasuke yelled from outside.

Sakura vaguely heard Sasuke knock down her door before she heard footsteps echoed through her apartment. She placed her hands to her stomach and pressed her eyes together tightly as the blood seeped through her fingers and down the back of her hands. Her lips were pursed together tightly as the adrenaline wore off and the pain continued to rack her body in a repeated wave.

"Sakura?" she heard Sasuke call frantically.

He dropped to his knees next to her and pushed her hands away to take a look at her wound. She cracked her eyes open and watched as he quickly stood up and grabbed one of her kitchen towels before he raced back to her side. He covered the wound with one hand and pulled out his phone with the other.

"This is Chief Superintendent Uchiha Sasuke," he said. "I need an ambulance at the Yashi apartment building on Sekiguchi immediately. Apartment number B8."

There was a reply, but Sakura was in far too much pain to understand the woman on the other end. Sasuke maneuvered his phone to rest between his shoulder and his ear before he placed his other hand on her neck wound. Sakura gave a small cry of pain and began moving restlessly under his hold.

"Haruno Sakura. Age twenty-three," Sasuke said into the phone. "She has stab wounds to her neck and abdomen."

Sakura pressed her eyes together tightly as another surge of pain racked her body. She threw her head back, knocking loose a few of the tears that had pooled in the corners of her eye. She tried to lie on her uninjured side to help ease her restlessness, but Sasuke's firm pressure kept her in place. "Stay still, Sakura," he said softly. "It'll be over soon."

She replied with a groan.

"Don't worry; I'm not going anywhere," he promised.

Sakura clenched her teeth together tightly and more tears fell down her face as she vaguely heard the sirens in distance. Her brow knitted together in confusion as to how they got there so fast, but after a moment she realized that she had been drifting in and out of unconsciousness when there were police suddenly occupying her apartment.

The next moments passed in a blur for her. She knew that the ambulance had arrived along with police and other law enforcement, but as to how the paramedics got her down the stairs and onto a stretcher she had no idea. But before she could think through the pain and figure it out, everything turned dark.

* * *

"You act like you know everything," Kisame said.

Sasori shrugged. "That is because I know a lot. Don't get annoyed because you are less intelligent than I am."

Kisame snorted loudly. "You have to be the most arrogant son of a-."

His words were cut off as Itachi's phone went off. Sasori, Kisame, and Deidara all turned in their chairs to face Itachi as he glanced at the caller I.D. before he answered. "What is it, Sasuke?"

"Sakura's in the hospital," he replied.

Itachi bolted forward in his chair immediately. For a moment, he thought his heart had literally missed a beat as Sasuke's words registered in his mind. All thoughts of his earlier conversation with his three old friends disappeared as his mind focused on what was going on. "What happened?"

Sasuke said something to someone in the background before he returned to his brother. "She…" he trailed off. "You need to come here now. She's in the Tokyo University Hospital."

Itachi was on his feet in an instant. "I'll be right there," he replied before he hung up and made his way out the door without so much as a word to his friends.

The car ride from the TMPD to the hospital seemed impossibly long. Itachi was unusually impatient and the usual late-night rush-hour traffic was frustrating him beyond belief. He weaved around the cars and dodged from lane to lane, but it seemed like the cars couldn't move fast enough. When he finally parked his car in the lot, he walked at a brisk pace up to the front doors and pushed his way through before he approached the front desk.

The nurse looked up and smiled politely, but her jaw dropped in astonishment when she realized whom it was. Quickly she stood up and bowed. "S-Superintendent General-sama," she stuttered. "What can I help you-?"

"I need the room number for Haruno Sakura," Itachi cut her off.

The woman stared at him for a moment before she sat to her seat and returned to her computer. "Um…one moment, sir."

Itachi watched impatiently as her fingers skimmed across the keyboard and her eyes searched the computer screen, but they flew up to meet his gaze every once in a while annoying Itachi even further. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself, but it didn't work. His heart was beating wildly in his chest and an uncomfortable feeling of nervousness settled in his stomach. He had only felt like this one other time when his mother was giving birth to Sasuke when he was about four-years-old.

"Haruno Sakura is on the seventh floor, room 665," the nurse replied.

Itachi nodded his thanks before he resumed his brisk pace to the elevators and pressed the up button. His impatience grew as the elevators took a few minutes to open and when he stepped inside he quickly jammed the button for the sixth floor. It took the doors a moment to close before he was taken up to his requested destination.

The floor was fairly busy when the elevator doors opened. He walked by a few hospital rooms and automatically peered inside, already knowing they weren't Sakura's room. There were doctors in a few, running tests and checking charts. He realized it was the recovery ward.

He saw doctors talking with family members while they cried and held each other for comfort, but he quickly pushed passed them, ignoring the stares of recognition on his way. He kept his sights on the hospital numbers as he walked down the hall.

"Itachi!" a familiar voice called.

He turned at the sound of his name and saw Sasuke get up from a chair nearby. Immediately Itachi changed his course and approached him quickly. Even from a distance, Itachi could make out his younger brother's clothing and it made his stomach twist into an uncomfortable knot. Sasuke's jeans were speckled with blood and his light blue t-shirt was stained almost everywhere with the crimson liquid. Itachi could smell the pleasant scent of soap on his hands and he realized Sasuke had probably just washed the blood off.

"What happened?" Itachi asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

Sasuke crossed his arms and looked at him straight in the eye. "Sakura was attacked by the East Coast Killer."

Itachi's eyes widened a fraction. "How?"

Sasuke shook his head. "I don't know. I knocked on her door in the middle of it. I guess it scared him off, which is a good thing, otherwise she would've been killed." Sasuke took a breath to calm himself. "She shot at him, but it missed." He paused, a hopeless expression on his face. "Itachi, I would've chased him down, but when I found Sakura she was…" he trailed off.

Itachi was quiet as he watched a rare batch of emotions flicker across Sasuke's face: regret, shock, and _fear_.

It wasn't the first time Itachi had seen Sasuke scared before, but it was the first time in a _very_ long time. The fact that Sasuke was showing that emotion now made him confirm just how serious the situation was. If something like this could strike fear into Sasuke than Sakura was probably worse than he had originally imagined.

"How is she?" Itachi asked quietly.

Sasuke's distant gaze disappeared and he focused his attention on his brother. "She's out of surgery and they said she'll be fine. The blade missed anything vital." He paused. "I haven't seen her yet, but I'm not sure about her mental state."

The older Uchiha nodded in understanding. Sakura had been a field agent, but she had never been in a situation that even remotely compared to what she had just gone through. Itachi wondered how she was taking it. He knew he could analyze the situation all he wanted and come up with a million different scenarios, but he wouldn't be satisfied until he had spoken to Sakura face-to-face and that was exactly what he was going to do.

"Where are you going?" Sasuke asked when Itachi began to walk away.

The older Uchiha glanced over his shoulder. "To see Sakura."

"They're not going to let you in," Sasuke said.

Itachi didn't reply as he walked towards Sakura's room. He didn't have to worry about not being let in. He was one of the most powerful men in Japan and if he had to, he was willing to – for the first time in his career –use that power to get what he wanted, hospital protocol be damned. It was his officer and he refused to be stopped by some doctor from seeing her, especially now that he knew why she was in the hospital.

Fortunately, Itachi didn't have to worry about using his influence to get what he wanted. No one stopped him as he walked towards Sakura's room; that was until he approached the door. The moment he reached for the handle, the door opened to reveal a blonde woman. Her brown eyes stared at him in surprise, but she didn't say anything until she had closed the door behind her.

"Superintendent General Uchiha," she said. "You must be here for Haruno-san."

Itachi nodded.

The blonde woman pursed her lips together. "I'm Tsunade, her doctor."

"How is she?" Itachi asked.

"I just ran a few tests on her and everything appears to be fine," she informed him. "Her stab wounds weren't terribly deep and she should be released within a few days' time." She paused. "Though, I am slightly concerned about her mental health. She doesn't appear to be very…" she trailed off. "To put it bluntly, she appears to be distracted. Though I'm not completely surprised. If I heard correctly, she was just attacked by a murderer," Tsunade continued. "My recommendation for her would be to get some counseling before she returns to duty."

Itachi nodded. "I need to speak with her."

Tsunade bit the inside of her cheek. "I normally wouldn't permit a visitor to see a patient so soon after surgery, but she could probably do with a friend." She sighed tiredly. "Just don't stay too long."

He nodded again. "Thank you, doctor."

Tsunade waved him off before she turned and walked down the hallway. Itachi watched her retreating form a moment before he walked into Sakura's room.

The moment Itachi stepped inside he spotted Sakura sitting up in bed. Her eyes were trained on something in front of her, but he had no idea what. He knew she knew he was there, but for whatever reason, she refused to turn her head and look at him. The tense set of her shoulders told him something was wrong, but as to what it was he had no idea.

Quietly he closed the door behind him, but he didn't step any further into the room. He wasn't sure how she would react to him yet and he didn't want to do anything to harm her. That was the last thing she needed right now.

"Sakura," he said calmly.

Her head immediately turned at the sound of his voice and her eyes widened when she realized it was him. He saw the circles under her eyes from lack of sleep and how pale her skin was from blood loss, but she hardly seemed fazed. The thing that really caught his attention was her eyes. They were dull and cheerless, but before he could figure out from what, she turned away from him and redirected her attention to her hands. She bit her lower lip nervously before releasing it a second later. Tsunade was right; there was something wrong.

Slowly Itachi approached and stopped a few paces away from her bed. "Sakura-."

"I'm sorry," she cut him off.

Itachi stared at her in masked surprise as she continued to stare at her hands. She was fidgeting with her fingers restlessly as she continued to avoid all eye contact with him by staring down at her hands. He couldn't understand why though. There was nothing for her to be sorry for. If anything, he should be apologizing to her for not keeping better tabs on the officers who were on the East Coast Killer case.

"I knew it was stupid of me and I should have been able to stop him," Sakura continued. "It's all my fault that he escaped. Now he's still out on the streets and-."

"Sakura," Itachi said. The small hint of authority in his voice immediately quieted her, but she still didn't look at him. She looked nervous again. "Sakura," he repeated, his voice softer, "are you alright?"

Slowly she turned her head to look at him and this time he realized just how anxious she was. Her eyes were searching his for something and she had returned to chewing on her bottom lip, but slowly she stopped and nodded slightly. "I'm fine." She paused and looked at him in confusion. "You're…not mad at me?"

Itachi paused. "Why would I be?"

She shook her head in confusion. "But I didn't catch him. He was right there and I didn't catch him."

Itachi shook his head. "That does not matter at the moment," he replied calmly. "You need to focus on recovering right now."

She cracked a small smile. "Is that an order?"

The right side of his lips curved upwards. "Would you like it to be?"

Sakura looked at her hands again, but his time she was smiling softly. The worry Itachi had been feeling towards Sakura faded at her smile and unconsciously his tense posture relaxed. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly to help settle his nerves.

From what he could tell, Sakura wasn't as "distracted" as Dr. Tsunade had made her seem. She seemed uncomfortable, but he figured that he probably would be too if he was stuck in the hospital. Actually, if anything, Sakura would seem to be taking everything in with an air of calmness to an outsider. Unfortunately Itachi was not an outsider and he knew this was how Sakura was before, during, and after assignments. He knew she was anything but calm at the moment.

"Are you afraid?" Itachi suddenly asked in a quiet voice.

Sakura glanced up at him, her smile gone, before her gaze settled on her hands once more. "Yes," she murmured.

She was quiet for a long moment. "Yes, I'm afraid." She brushed her palm against her cheek and she let out a shaky breath. She was crying. "I'm fucking terrified," she whispered. "A serial killer just tried to kill me and he's probably going to try-." She stopped herself and took a deep breath. "Try again. And next time I don't think I'll be able to stop-."

"Sakura," Itachi interrupted. She quieted, but didn't look at him. Slowly he closed the distance between him and the bed before he reached out to her. He grabbed her under the chin in a gentle but firm hold and forced her to look at him. "You know I will not allow that to happen."

The fear was absent from her gaze, but her emerald eyes were clouded in uncertainty. She watched him carefully for a moment before they cleared and she nodded once before she wiped the rest of her tears away with the palm of her hand. "Yes."

He kept her face in his hand a moment longer to be sure she wasn't lying before he finally released her. He watched as she pulled herself together again and a new respect for her fell over him. The strength she was showing was absolutely amazing. Even in a situation as bad as the one she had just been through she managed to stay reasonable and understanding. She really was one of a kind. It was no wonder he was so attracted to her.

Itachi stilled.

When did this happen? He couldn't recall being attracted to Sakura. Sure, he thought she was a beautiful woman, but he'd never given any thought to an actual relationship with her, even if he was curious as to if she had a boyfriend or not. It was a strange thought but not an unwelcome one by any means, which only succeeded in surprising him further.

 _Definitely not,_ he thought.

Sakura would never want to be with a busy-body like him. Besides, right now wasn't the best time to even consider a relationship with anyone on his part. He was far too busy with his case and the extra stress would definitely not help the investigation. Not only that, but he still had no idea if she was already in a relationship. He guessed she wasn't, otherwise her boyfriend would probably be there, fighting for time alone with her right now, and no one was. It was just him and Sakura.

"Did they say when I could leave?" Sakura asked suddenly.

Itachi turned his attention back to her. She was staring out the window tiredly at the dark, Tokyo sky. "In a few days," he replied.

She sighed quietly and relaxed into her bed. "When can I return to work?"

Itachi was quiet for a moment. He could already tell what her action was going to be to what he had to tell her and the stress she was going to put on herself was definitely something she didn't need right now. He didn't want to broach the subject yet, but if she was asking then he wouldn't avoid it.

"Dr. Tsunade has requested you get counseling before returning to duty," Itachi answered quietly.

Sakura's head snapped to look at him. "Duty?" she asked. "I'm not even a…what? No!" Just as he had predicted, she was angry. "I don't need to talk about my feelings and what I'm going through to some loser who gets paid to listen to people who have a more interesting life than them!" she hissed. "What I need is to get back to work so I can focus myself on something other than how close I came to getting kill tonight!"

Her shoulders were tense and she was obviously fuming as she dug her fingers into the blankets. Her intense gaze turned to the wall and he watched as she took forceful, even breaths to calm herself.

Itachi stared at her for a long moment. She just went through four different strong emotions in a time span of only a few minutes. His brows knitted together before they relaxed. It surprised him to realize that he wasn't offended by her outburst at all.

Normally he would have never stood there silently as one of his officers shouted at him, but for whatever reason he didn't mind if Sakura did. She probably needed something to be angry at to get her stress and fear out, and he was the only thing available at the moment. He supposed it probably wasn't best that Sakura did it now, seeing as it was close to midnight and everyone in the hospital was probably asleep. Instead of berating her for her outburst he simply placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I know, Sakura," he said quietly. "And you will probably be angry at me, but I agree with her."

Sakura looked at him sharply and glared at him before she turned her gaze away. "Fine," she said quietly but angrily.

Itachi just sighed quietly. "Get some rest, Sakura."

He felt her relax under his hand before she nodded slightly.

Quietly Itachi turned from her and started towards the door, but stopped when a sudden thought came to him. There was one way he could be sure she was or wasn't in a relationship.

"Sakura," he said, turning to look at her. She raised her head and stared at him expectantly. "Is there anyone I could contact for you?"

Sakura watched him for a moment before she shook her head. "No one, sir."

A sense of ease settled over Itachi at her answer. "Any family, perhaps?" he asked.

For a moment, Sakura just stared at him before she shook her head and turned to look back out the window with a sad look. "No one," she repeated softer.

Her answer confused him and at the same time made a sense of sadness fall over him. He had no idea what she meant by "no one" but he didn't have the heart to ask and guilt settled in the bottom of his stomach at making her feel that way. Quickly he turned away from her. "Very well. Good night, Sakura."

He turned towards the door and made his way silently. He could hear Sakura shift quietly in her bed as if she couldn't find a comfortable position. She probably wasn't all too happy about being stuck in the hospital – and alone at that – but unfortunately there was nothing he could do. She needed to be here in case anything else happened. Maybe he should send Sasuke in to stay with her.

"Itachi."

The Superintendent General froze at the sound of his name. No one in the police force had ever called him by his first name other than Sasuke and Shisui. Then he realized it wasn't his actual name that made him freeze. It was the tone of her voice. It sounded almost scared.

Slowly he turned around to see Sakura was sitting up in her bed with the blankets pooled around her waist. Her legs were criss-crossed and her head was bent downwards. Her fingers were holding the blanket in a death grip, but he couldn't see her expression behind her hair. "There's something else," she said in the same tone.

Itachi was confused. What could have happened in those few seconds to make her act like this? He was starting to worry about her health now. She was jumping from emotion to emotion much too quickly. Her mood changes were not only tiring him in his attempt to keep up, but she was under way too much stress at the moment.

"I'm sure it can wait until morning," he replied in a smooth voice.

Sakura took a deep breath and shook her head. "No. It can't."

Slowly Itachi released the door handle and walked further into the room. Her expression was unusually serious, but there was a hint of worry and fear in it too. "What's wrong?" Itachi asked. His attention was fixed solely on her.

"The murderer," Sakura said quietly.

"What about the murderer?" Itachi asked.

Sakura took a deep breath before she met his gaze evenly. "He works at TMPD."

Itachi stilled as he registered what Sakura had said. "How do you know?" he asked quietly.

She swallowed quietly. "I saw it before he stabbed me."

Slowly Itachi moved forward until he was a few feet from her hospital bed. "Are you sure?" he asked in the same tone.

The moment he asked the question he knew he would never forget the look of absolute certainty and fear. "I'll never forget it."

It was all the confirmation he needed. His mind suddenly began working faster than it ever had before. The faces of all his officers flew into his mind one after the other. Each one looked as innocent as the next, but he knew each could be the murderer that had almost killed Sakura. It didn't matter that the TMPD was one of the most secure facilities in the country now because one of them was a serial killer. One of them could kill everyone in the building one by one and they could do it right under his nose without him even finding the convict.

Fiercely he shook himself. It was no time for him to panic. He was a leader and he had to act like it. His personal feelings did not matter. All of his efforts had to be focused on catching the murderer before he got a hold of anyone else.

"Does Sasuke know?" Itachi asked.

Sakura shook her head. "I've only told you."

Itachi nodded. "Very well."

He was quiet for a long moment as he made the decision he had been contemplating unconsciously sense he had seen Sakura. "You are to stay with Sasuke until everything gets sorted out. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, pulling her hair back.

Itachi nodded and stepped back about to make his way towards the door only to freeze when he saw the gauze on Sakura's neck. His blood turned to ice and his chest constricted sharply when he saw the specks of blood on the gauze. Her wound was bleeding through the bandage.

And then it hit him. Hard.

His breath caught when he realized just how close Sakura came to dying. If Sasuke hadn't shown up, Sakura would have either bled to death or the murderer would have finished her off. She literally owed her life to his brother.

But never mind that thought.

Sakura had almost _died_. Forever. The very thought of never seeing her smiling face or hearing her cheerful voice scared him. Nothing scared him. Ever. And there he was, shaking in fear. Or was it anger? Anger towards the one that had almost taken her from him.

He made his decision.

He would see to whoever did this to Sakura. He would be sure that they never saw the light of day again, unless it was through the bars of the dirtiest jail cell in the country. He would make sure they never breathed the crisp air of the Japan sky and could never feel the wetness of the rain on their skin again. Once he caught them, their life would turn into a living hell even if it was the last thing he did.

He took a deep breath before he turned towards the door again, the moment lasting only a few seconds. "Good night, Sakura."

Then he left the room.

Absentmindedly Itachi explained to Sasuke what Sakura had told him and his decision for her to stay with him before he left the hospital and returned to the police department. He thought he saw Ino enter Sakura's room a few seconds after he left, but he was so lost in his own thoughts he couldn't tell if he remembered correctly. It wouldn't surprise him though. Ino and Sakura had been friends since high school. She would be one of the first ones – if not for him, the first – to visit Sakura.

"Superintendent General-sama," the officer at the front desk said. "I was informed you had left for the night."

Itachi hardly glanced at the man. "Some things have come up."

He wanted to run a full search on the officer and every other policeman and woman in the building, but that would create suspicion and the last thing he needed was for the serial killer to go into hiding. If he was going to catch this murderer, it had to be done discreetly. After all, the East Coast Killer probably had no idea they had a lead. As far as he knew, he probably thought they only had his basic description from Sakura. Maybe this incident could rule in their favor.

Mentally Itachi noted that he needed to personally thank Sakura. She might have provided them with the information they needed to break the case.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five  
Irrationality

A headache was beginning to take form in the front of Itachi's mind. He could feel the soft pulsing of it just above his left eye. There was a simple cure, he knew, but he kept denying himself it: rest.

Ever since Sakura had been attacked a week ago, Itachi had been pushing himself to his limits. For the past week he had been personally checking the time charts to see what officers had not been in the building during the time Sakura was attacked to narrow down the list of suspects. So far, almost all of the agents on his case were not in the building at the time, making everyone a suspect. The list of people he could trust at the moment was limited and fortunately most of the officers on the case, namely Sasuke, Shisui, Kisame, Deidara, Sasori, and Shikamaru. Sasuke had been the one to save Sakura, and Itachi's three friends had been with him at the time of the attack. Shisui had been out with his parents and the charts showed Shikamaru had worked throughout the night.

It was absolutely frustrating.

Because of the fact that everyone was a suspect, he couldn't actually give away any real information unless it was one of the ones he had already marked off the list. This case was going nowhere and he couldn't figure out how to proceed besides continuing to do what he had been doing for a week, which was taking forever already. It felt like he was slowly losing his mind.

"If you keep this up, you're going to kill yourself."

Itachi picked his head up from his hands and threw a look at the person standing in his doorway. "That's quite an exaggeration, Kisame," he replied coolly.

He snorted. "Not really. Why don't you let me take over for a while? You've been working since before I got here."

Itachi hardly even glanced at his old friend as he continued scanning through the surveillance videos taken from downstairs. "It is protocol for Shisui to take over if I am absent."

"And Shisui's absent."

"Then it would be Sasuke's job."

Itachi heard Kisame lean against the wall heavily in annoyance, but he didn't spare him a glance. His tired eyes scanned his computer screen as he zoomed in on another officer's face and marked them off the list of suspects. This continued for a few more minutes before Kisame sighed loudly.

"Did you come here for a reason?" Itachi asked unkindly.

"Why are you so obsessed with this, Itachi?"

Itachi felt his headache worsen. With a deep breath, he set his pen down a little louder than necessary in aggravation before he turned to the older man. "One of my agents was almost killed, Kisame. I take that very seriously."

Kisame's expression turned just as serious. "I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm just trying to understand why you're pointlessly exhausting yourself."

"Because everyone in this building is a suspect, Kisame," Itachi answered coldly. "I have very few people to work with on this case."

"You're exhausting yourself," he repeated.

Itachi clenched his jaw in annoyance. "Why don't you go find something else to do besides interrupt me."

"I can't," Kisame replied. "I'm too busy making sure you don't kill yourself."

Itachi felt his annoyance go up another notch. He was here, working as hard as he could, while Kisame wandered around the building, checking in on him every once and a while to be sure he didn't "kill himself". Itachi had specifically asked Kisame to help with this case because he knew he had a good work ethic and liked to get things done quickly; the exact opposite of what he was doing now.

"Go assist Deidara and Sasori in taking up Sakura's work," he suggested.

Kisame crossed his arms. "Haruno's work could be done with only one of them."

"Then assist Sasuke," he snapped.

Kisame seemed to not even hear him. "You know, you keep calling Haruno 'Sakura', right?"

He hesitated.

Whether he did because of Kisame's random comment or because of what he had actually said, he didn't know. Unfortunately Kisame seemed to think the latter for a wide grin spread across his face. Itachi replied with a glare because he hadn't realized until now that he had started calling her by her first name.

Since that night in the hospital, Itachi had pushed himself harder and longer because he knew it was for the sake of Sakura. For whatever reason, she was suddenly very important to him and he felt obligated to protect her because he hadn't before. It was confusing and having Kisame butt his head in where he shouldn't was driving him over the edge. He was already angry at himself over what happened and lately his patience had been unusually thin.

"What does it matter if I call Haruno by her first or last name?" Itachi asked coldly.

Kisame put up his hands defensively and shrugged. "It doesn't. I was just curious if you had noticed or not. You don't have to bite my head off."

Itachi glared in response as his office door swung open and Sasuke walked in. He flipped through a few files before he threw one down on Itachi's desk. "The killer used the same blade to attack Sakura as the one he used on the other victims," he said.

Itachi picked up the file, deliberately ignoring Kisame's victorious grin. He scanned over Sasuke's report and signed the bottom of the page before he turned to see Sasuke was giving Kisame a weird look. Itachi almost thought he had missed something, but Kisame's expression hadn't changed.

"Does _Haruno_ know?" Itachi asked, directing his question more to Kisame.

Sasuke shook his head. "I was about to call her. Was there something you wanted to tell her?"

Itachi nodded.

He had thought more than once if he could get some more information on what Sakura remembered of the night she was attacked he could narrow down the number of suspects to maybe a dozen or less. Before, he was worried it would be too much for her to think about what had happened, but now he was getting desperate. There wasn't enough time for him to go over every officer. There were over a thousand.

Itachi watched as Sasuke sat down on one of the chairs in front of his desk and called Sakura, placing his phone of speaker phone. It rang twice before she picked up.

"Haruno."

"Sakura, it's me," Sasuke said. "I have something to tell you."

She paused. "I figured. What is it?"

"The blade the killer used on you was the same one he used on his other victims," Sasuke informed her.

"That's not that surprising," Sakura replied. "It wouldn't make sense for him to buy a new blade every time."

"True," Sasuke agreed. "Where are you right now?"

There was silence on the other end of the line. "Out," she finally replied quietly.

Itachi watched Sasuke's eyes narrow as if he was surprised she hadn't told him exactly, but then his expression cleared and he picked his phone up and took it off speaker. "I'll be back at my place in a couple of hours. There are some things I want to discuss with you." His younger brother remained quiet as he waited for her reply. Then he frowned. "Sakura, are you alright?"

The frown on Sasuke's face deepened slightly as she spoke but then his expression cleared and nodded. "Okay."

Once again, he put his phone on speaker and set it on the edge of Itachi's desk before he looked at his older brother expectantly. Itachi hesitated though. He wanted information about the night Sakura was attacked, but it sounded as if something was wrong and he didn't want to put any more stress of her.

Eventually he sighed quietly before he spoke. "Sakura," he said. He could feel Kisame's eyes burning into him and he sighed inwardly when he realized he had called her by her first name again. He let it go though; it was too late to change it now.

She paused for a moment as if not realizing she was on speaker phone. "Yes, sir?"

He hesitated again before finally replying, "Try and be safe."

"Of course," she replied.

Even through the phone, he could hear the smile in her voice. At her light tone, the corner of his mouth lifted and he nodded slightly to himself. "I will be seeing you soon," Itachi replied.

"Yes, sir," she said lightly.

Then she hung up. Sasuke picked up his phone afterwards and stood up, hesitating for a moment when he saw the smirk on Kisame's face. Itachi just ignored both of them and returned to his computer.

Only once both Sasuke and Kisame had left to return to work did he sit back in his chair and let a small smile grace his lips. Sakura was strong; he believed she could handle talking about that night. He just wasn't going to force her. He was going to let her come to him.

* * *

Absentmindedly, Sakura played with the keys to Sasuke's car as she stepped out of the elevator onto the eighteenth floor of the police department. She saw Ino out of the corner of her eyes as she strolled towards the Superintendent General's office, but her back was to her so she continued without saying a word to her best friend. When she reached the door, she took a deep breath before knocking. After all, she wasn't supposed to be at work until her counselor said it was okay for her to return to duty, which of course she had said no for at least another week. But she was a counselor, what the hell did she know?

"Come in," Itachi's voice said.

Slowly Sakura turned the handle and walked inside, pleasantly surprised to find she was not the only one there. Kisame was leaning against the wall directly to her right while Sasori stood across the way and Deidara lounged lazily in one of the chairs in front of the Superintendent General's desk. Itachi didn't even seem fazed by Deidara's lack of formality. He was sitting in his chair with perfect posture, his fingers laced in his lap.

Normally Sakura would have commented on the vast difference between the four of them – mentally at least – but there was one common denominator between them that hadn't been there before. They all looked exhausted. Every single one of them had dark circles under their eyes and they all looked a little less professional than normal. It looked like they hadn't slept in days; Itachi especially.

His appearance was neat and orderly like always, but her keen eyes picked up the way his tie was loose and his button-up shirt was slightly wrinkled, and to add to that, he wasn't wearing his jacket. It was thrown carelessly over the back of his chair like he had been there for a while and he had no intention of leaving.

"Am I interrupting?" Sakura asked slowly.

"Actually, we were just talking about you," Kisame replied.

Sakura glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes and she opened her mouth to reply, but it took her a couple of seconds to speak. "Oh." She paused. "I'm not quite sure if that's a good or bad thing."

No one clarified.

"Excuse us," Itachi finally said. "I need to speak with Haruno alone."

It didn't escape Sakura's attention that Itachi was looking at Kisame when he spoke, but nonetheless the three men nodded at Itachi and stood to leave. She moved out of the way to allow them to pass and they offered her small smiles on their way out. She returned them and stood quietly as Kisame closed the door behind him. Once it was firmly shut, she turned to Itachi to see he was staring at his computer. "Sakura," he said calmly. "If I'm correct, you saw your counselor today."

Slowly Sakura swallowed as Itachi turned his attention onto her. Uncomfortably she nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Then I assume she said it was acceptable you return to work, seeing as you're here?" he asked smoothly.

Sakura nodded curtly. "Yes, sir."

He stared at her for a long moment.

She knew that stare. He was measuring her up to tell if she was telling the truth and the worst part was, she wasn't. But then again, her counselor hadn't said that she couldn't visit, right? Though from the look Itachi was giving her, he knew she was lying, which was not a good thing. Now he was probably going to order her to go home…or Sasuke's house.

 _Well this sucks,_ she thought.

"I received an e-mail from her earlier today," the Superintendent General finally said.

Sakura groaned mentally as he returned his attention to his computer screen. "To Superintendent General Uchiha, from Doctor Nakano," he read. "Officer Haruno is not fit to return to work. She is exhausted both physically and mentally, disconnected and in denial of her parents' deaths and the attack." Sakura's jaw literally dropped. "Allowing Officer Haruno to resume a full workload could put her and other members of the TMPD at risk. This includes her health and the thoroughness of her work."

"What?" Sakura snapped. Now she was angry.

Itachi turned his gaze to her, but didn't say anything. His eyes were observant as he took in every expression of anger that crossed her face.

"This is completely unfair and insane!" Sakura yelled.

"According to Doctor Nakano," Itachi replied smoothly, "so are you."

Sakura glared at him and crossed her arms. "And you believe her?"

Itachi kept his attention fixed solely on her. "She works specifically with cases like this."

"So you're taking her side?"

Itachi's expression turned to one of amusement. "Sides?" he asked. "No, this isn't dodge ball, Sakura. I am only trying to make sure you are alright."

She sighed in annoyance and rolled her eyes. "I'm fine," she said in exasperation. "I'm not some five-year-old who fell down and scrapped their knee."

Itachi's expression turned serious again. "No," he agreed. "You are a young woman whom was almost murdered by a serial killer." Sakura's anger faded at his words. "Quite a difference."

Sakura was quiet for a long moment when she realized he was right. She hadn't fallen and got a little bruised; she had been attacked and placed in the hospital for a few days because of it. Her life had literally been hanging by a thread that night and Sasuke had saved her. She owed him everything.

"I wasn't planning on staying for long," she finally said. She hesitated as his dark eyes caught hers and stared at her calculatingly. A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed thickly as she crossed her arms a little self-consciously. "I want to help. I hate sitting in that safe house the department gave me. It makes me restless."

Itachi's eyes seemed to soften before he nodded towards the chairs in front of his desk. Sakura smiled slightly before she sat in the one on the far side of the room. She didn't miss the way Itachi watched her as she sat down and he waited until she was situated before he spoke: "How exactly would you like to help?"

Sakura swallowed thickly. "I was hoping I could tell you something from the night of the attack that would help with the investigation."

An intense expression fell over Itachi's face and Sakura looked away consciously as she dragged her bottom lip into her mouth. "Anything helps, Sakura," he said calmly.

She smiled and peeked at him through her eyelashes before she picked her head up and looked out the darkening sky of Tokyo. She pursed her lips together and knitted her eyebrows together as she thought back to that night a little over a week ago. She could clearly remember the TMPD badge glinting in the dark room and her attacker standing over her, but everything was little fuzzy like her mind was fighting to forget what had happened.

With a quiet sigh, Sakura focused back on Itachi to see he was watching her closely. She shook her head slightly and opened her mouth to recall what she did remember when she remembered the East Coast Killer had stood behind her and all but pressed his body against her. If she got comparisons she could probably tell how tall he was.

Blinking her eyes back into focus, she fixed Itachi with her own intense gaze. "I can probably tell you how tall he is, but I need Sasuke, Deidara and Sasori."

Itachi watched her for a long moment before he picked up his office phone and punched some numbers into the key pad. They sat in silence for a long moment as it rang until someone eventually answered on the other line. "Sasuke, grab Sasori and Deidara, and come to my office."

She vaguely heard Sasuke's voice on the other end, but it was too quiet to be able to tell what he said. A moment later, Itachi hung up and turned back to his computer. He typed a few things on his keyboard before a knock sounded on the door and Sasuke entered with Sasori and Deidara behind him, all of them wearing slightly confused expressions.

"Haruno has offered to help us on the case," Itachi said after they all stepped inside.

Slowly Sasuke approached her until he stood next to the chair she was seated in. "How so?" he asked. He was looking at Itachi but for some reason Sakura felt the question was more directed at her.

Sakura cleared her throat lightly as Itachi's gaze turned to her. "I don't remember a lot from the night of the attack," she admitted quietly. "But I can remember how tall my attacker was if I was to have something to compare it to."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Deidara, Sasori and Sasuke glance at each other silently. Sakura swallowed thickly but before her nervousness and fear could override her, Sasuke squeezed her shoulder slightly. "What do you need us to do?"

A small smile crossed Sakura's face and she breathed out a sigh of relief before she finally looked up at him. "Turn off the lights."

Sasuke released her shoulder as he looked at Deidara and nodded. Sakura slowly stood and walked into the middle of the room just as Deidara killed the lights. The sky outside the window was dark, casting the room in dark shadows that were very reminiscent of the night she was attacked. It was the perfect setting to help her remember as much as she hated to admit it.

Sakura quickly forced herself to focus and she glanced at Sasori's shadow. "Sasori-san," she said lightly, afraid to break the silence in the room. "Would you please stand behind me?"

Carefully, he approached her and stood behind her, coming close enough that she could tell his height. She could feel his breath on her shoulder, but it was too low for him to be the same height as her attacker. She shook her head and told them so before Deidara took his place. His breath fell across the back of her neck near her ear.

She frowned and shook her head again. "You're too tall," she said quietly.

Deidara just squeezed her shoulder and stepped back as Sasuke moved to take his place. His hand brushed over her upper arm as he stepped up to her. His breath warmed the juncture where her throat and shoulder met and a sharp shiver raced up her spine as fear clouded her mind.

 _"Who are you?" she asked breathlessly._

 _They replied by tightening their grip on her arm painfully. She bit back a yelp of pain and stayed motionless as they continued to stand in the entrance of her kitchen silently. She could feel the rough fabric of their clothes on her back and she knew her head was resting somewhere close to their shoulder. They were probably about a head taller than her._

 _Then a thought wondered into her mind._

 _"Are you the East Coast Killer?" she murmured, feeling her heart rate quicken slightly._

 _The masculine huff of amusement in her ear made her realize it was._

"You're the same height," she murmured as she blinked herself back from that night. Her knees felt weak and her heart was pounding in her chest. She felt the urge to jerk away from Sasuke, but before she could move, someone turned on the lights and the fear slowly ebbed.

She didn't turn around as the weakness in her knees spread to her entire body. She felt Sasuke put a comforting arm around her and she leaned against him for support as she turned around to face everyone else in the room.

Sasori and Deidara glanced at each other before they returned their attention to her. Itachi was still seated behind his desk, but there was a contemplative look on his face. "Are you sure?" he asked softly but seriously.

For a moment, Sakura was quiet as she glanced up at Sasuke, but eventually she turned back to Itachi and nodded. "I'm positive."

Itachi switched his gaze to Sasuke and looked him up once. "How tall are you now, Sasuke?"

"About five foot eight," he answered.

Sakura watched as Itachi nodded and turned back to his computer. "I will send an e-mail out to Shisui. We can narrow down the lists of suspects with this new information." Then he looked up and glanced at Sasori and Deidara. "Everyone is dismissed. And do not speak to anyone about the new information we have obtained," he added as they started towards the door. "I will inform Kisame as well."

Deidara and Sasori nodded in agreement and quietly exited before Sasuke and Sakura followed after them. Sasuke still had his arm around her shoulders and was quietly leading her, but before they could exit out, Itachi spoke again: "Just a moment, Sakura."

Both she and Sasuke stopped before he carefully pulled his arm away from her shoulders. "I'll wait outside for you, alright?"

She nodded slightly and watched the door close behind him before she turned her attention to Itachi. She jumped slightly when she looked up to see him standing less than two feet in front of her. His suddenly close proximity startled her and she stared at him with wide eyes.

Carefully Sakura took a step back only for her back to collide with the wall and she watched him as he trapped her between himself and the wall. Her breath caught and her whole body warmed as his gaze fixed solely on her.

She remembered this feeling. It was the same as when he had first told her she would be working on the East Coast Killer case, only now it was much more intense. Her heart was beating rapidly in her ribcage and she could feel the heat of a blush on her cheeks as Itachi placed a hand on the wall next to her head and leaned down towards her. Her lips parted and slowly she closed her eyes in anticipation for what was the come.

But before his lips touched her, he suddenly pulled away and stood up straight. "Thank you, Sakura," he murmured quietly.

A small frown fell across her face as displeasure flooded her. She didn't know why she was so disappointment that he hadn't kissed her, but in the long run, she supposed it was for the best. She couldn't afford to be distracted yet. Forcefully, she smiled. "I was just doing my job."

His obsidian eyes glittered in the low light. "You did more than that," he said. "You have helped us a lot lately, Sakura." Carefully he brushed his lips against her forehead before he took a step back and nodded towards the door. "You have had a trying day, though. You should go home and rest."

Once again Sakura's legs felt weak, but this time it was for an entirely different reason. She could only barely nod at him before she turned towards the door, but as she placed her hand on the doorknob Itachi spoke again: "Have a good night, Sakura."

Quietly, Sakura turned to look at him and nodded numbly before she walked out to meet Sasuke.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six  
The Final Message

As the week passed, Sakura learned to accept what happened between her and Itachi. She made no move towards him and decided that if he made another advance on her, then she would reciprocate it, but not before then. She was proud that the few conversations she'd held with her boss had been strictly professional and she had shown no more reaction towards what had happened than he did. The best part was Ino didn't know because if she didn't, then no one else did. What happened a week ago was between her and Itachi and that's the way she liked it.

Quietly Sakura pushed the conference door open and sat down in the chair next to Ino. Her blonde friend smiled in greeting at her without breaking her conversation with Shikamaru. Casually Sakura glanced around the room and saw a few more people still had yet to arrive. The meeting didn't start for another few minutes after all.

Silently Sakura took out her medicine and popped a painkiller in her mouth as the door opened again and Sasuke and Shisui stepped inside. They were speaking in hushed whispers, but quieted when they saw Sakura. She sighed and rolled her eyes in annoyance. She had been getting this ever since the attack about a week ago. It didn't really bother her that people were talking about her – people were going to talk – but they could at least give it a little effort to make it seem not overly obvious.

With a soft sigh, Sakura played with her coffee cup until the Superintendent General arrived. She half-paid attention during the meeting, knowing Itachi wasn't really giving out any important information. It was just a cover so the attacker, whoever it was, didn't know they were onto him. Sakura hadn't really thought about it before, but whoever had attacked her was probably sitting in this room.

Casually her gaze swept around the officers, landing on each one before moving onto the next. Shino was watching Itachi intensely while Neji took some notes and Shikamaru actually pretended to be paying attention. Sasori and Kisame were watching Itachi with blank expressions as Deidara watched Sakura. Quickly she glanced away and turned to Shisui. His lips were pursed together ever so slightly, but it was enough for her to take notice, and Itachi was standing giving out the latest news on the murderer.

Then Sakura looked at Sasuke.

His eyes were hard and his face expressionless, but she saw he was watching everyone just as carefully as she was. He went from person to person until they made eye contact. Sakura watched the way emotion flicked across his eyes before they finally disappeared. It was at that moment she realized she hadn't told Sasuke thank you yet. She hadn't done anything to show him just how much she owed him even when he had comforted her after she had thought back to the night she was attacked. He deserved so much from her and she hadn't done anything.

Sakura bit the inside of her lip before she offered him a small smile. For a moment, Sakura swore she saw him smile back, but it was gone so fast she wasn't sure if she had seen it.

Quickly Sakura shook herself out of her thoughts when she saw everyone rise and bow to Itachi, signaling the end of the meeting. She followed in short and waited for almost everyone to leave before she collected her things and headed towards the door.

"Haruno, a moment," Itachi's voice said.

Sakura paused at the door and turned to see her superiors and Itachi's friends were staring at her. For some odd reason, she suddenly felt like she was being calculated by every person in the room. They all had thoughtful looks on their faces and she had to tighten her grasp on her coffee cup to hide her nervousness. Her eyes flashed to each person and her heart began to race. Had she done something wrong with knowing it? Oh god, did they know what had happened between her and Itachi before? Quickly Sakura shook the thought from her head. She knew that there was no way Itachi would tell anyone; she was just overreacting. Slowly Sakura set her coffee cup down on the table before she spoke: "Yes, sir?"

Without a word, Itachi pulled out a piece of paper and laid it on the table. She watched him for a moment before her eyes turned to the paper and she slowly approached the table. When she stopped at the edge of the table, she realized there were typed words on it. "What's this?" Sakura asked.

"This killer has sent us another message," Sasori replied.

Sakura looked up at him before she turned her attention to the note. It read:

 _This is never going to end!_

 _You will hunt me down day after day._

 _But it doesn't matter because it's scientific._

 _And when you finally get it, I'll be too far for you to grab._

 _So thank you for that._

 _You have let me get away!_

 _But don't let your failure get in the way of your job._

 _I promise I haven't killed anybody._

 _At least not lately!_

 _You'll understand someday._

 _But only when you listen to the forensic._

 _Only then will you comprehend its worth._

The more Sakura read, the more she became confused. "This doesn't make any sense," she said.

"We know," Shisui said. "That's why we're going to let you figure it out."

Sakura's head snapped up and she stared at Shisui in surprise. Slowly her eyes traveled over everyone to see they all had the same blank expression. "You're making me do all the work?"

Sasuke sighed slightly. "You did figure out the last one."

It was hard to tell if they were complimenting her or not. Sasuke made it sound like she was the only one smart enough to figure out the message, but then again they were all smarter than her so why was she the only one working on this?

"It's typed," Sakura murmured to no one in particular. "If it is someone in the TMPD, they could have used one of our printers. I could match up the ink."

"It's an interesting idea," Kisame nodded.

Sakura sighed. "I can run some tests."

Itachi nodded. "You're the only one who knows about this," he added. "I hope for it to stay that way."

Slowly Sakura met his gaze. He was staring at her blankly, but his eyes were calculating like they always were. He was staring at her expectantly, but she had no idea what he wanted. And then Sakura saw it. He was staring at her expectantly because he was challenging her! He didn't think that she could do it! Well she would show him, he could count on that!

Forcefully, Sakura picked up the message and her files. "I'll figure it out. Just give me a little bit."

The corner of Itachi's lips lifted up into a smile. "Sasuke will be checking in on you soon to see how you're doing."

Sakura could almost roll her eyes. She wasn't a five-year-old–. Wait, didn't she already have this conversation with him? Oh yeah, she had. And she'd lost.

* * *

"How long have you been working?"

Slowly Sakura looked up from what she was doing to see Sasuke was standing next to her, watching quietly as she wrote. His suit's jacket was absent and he had rolled the sleeves of his light blue shirt up almost to his elbows. His hair was lacking most of its usual spikiness and his eyes were watching her unusually close. With a small frown, Sakura glanced at the clock on her computer and mentally calculated how many hours she had been staring at the new message as she pushed her glasses up on top of her head. "Not long," she replied, turning back to the youngest Uchiha.

He nodded slightly before he took a seat at her second computer chair. Patiently she waited for him to say whatever was on his mind, but when he continued to stare off into space she grew confused. Sasuke wasn't one to really lose himself into thought too often.

"Sasuke?" Sakura said quietly.

Sasuke blinked at the sound of his name and refocused on Sakura. "So…" he said slowly. "Are you still seeing your counselor?"

Sakura narrowed her eyes slightly in confusion. "Um…yeah."

He nodded. "That's good." Then he fell silent again.

Sakura looked around her office awkwardly as she waited for Sasuke to say whatever it was he was thinking. As impatient as she was for him to speak so she could get back to work, she didn't press him. She could wait for him to say whatever it was that was bothering him so much. Besides ever since her attack, they hadn't really talked much. With Sasuke always being away at work and Sakura either at Ino's or at her counselor's they never really saw each other.

"Sakura, I-," he started before falling silent again. She returned her gaze back to him at the sound of his voice. "I'm glad you're alright," he finished slowly.

Immediately a small smile touched Sakura's lips and without a word, she reached out wrapped her arms around him with getting up from her chair. He stiffened at the sudden contact, but quickly relaxed and wrapped his own arms loosely around her waist.

As if a dam had burst, Sakura tightened her grip around Sasuke and buried her face in his neck as the tears rose to her eyes and slipped out. "Thank you for everything," she choked out. "If you hadn't been there I don't think I would have survived. I owe you so much. I don't know what I could ever do to repay you."

Sasuke's only reply was to hold her tighter.

Sakura wasn't sure how long they sat there holding one another before they finally pulled away from each other so Sakura could wipe her tears away. Sasuke smiled slightly as he moved his hands to her shoulders. "You can go out with my brother, already."

Sakura froze before she slowly brought her eyes to meet Sasuke's. "P-pardon?"

How did he know Itachi had almost kissed her? She didn't tell him and there was no one else that could have told him.

Unless Itachi had.

Was it possible he had confided in his brother? Her boss didn't seem like the type of person that would talk to someone about personal problems. He was always so strong and sure of himself like he always knew exactly what he was doing and what everyone else was doing, but there was always a possibility that he was as unsure of what to do as she was. The thought was foreign to her, but she knew it was definitely an option. After all, she didn't know him as well as Sasuke did.

It surprised her when Sasuke snorted and leaned back in his chair. "C'mon, Sakura. Please don't tell me you're that blind. Itachi can hardly keep his hands off you."

The stunned woman opened her mouth, but words were lost on her as she tried to think of an appropriate response. Fortunately someone walked into her lab, breaking the heavy silence that had settled around them. Slowly Sakura turned her head to see Shikamaru was standing in the doorway, looking like he didn't know if he should stay or walk back out.

"Shikamaru," Sakura said a little breathlessly, her surprise still threatening her voice. "Did you need something?"

"I have some blood samples," he said, lazily gesturing towards a bag he was holding.

Immediately Sakura stood up and took the bag from his hand. She pulled her glasses from her head and read the label before she turned back to her computer. "Okay. I can have this for you within the next hour or two."

Shikamaru nodded before he disappeared back out the door. Only the sound of Sasuke sighing did Sakura remember she had company. Quickly she turned around to find he was now standing in the doorway, on his way out.

"You're busy," he said calmly. "I'll talk to you later."

Sakura smiled slightly before she nodded. She waited until he was out of sight to return to her work.

* * *

"You're annoying," Sakura said to the letter.

Ever since she had gotten to work at six-thirty this morning, she had been running around, secretly getting ink samples from every printer in the building, and putting them in her computer so she could match the ink to the letter. Her computer was currently running through all the printers, but it was taking a while, seeing as the building had over fifty printers.

So much for a happy birthday. She was sure that Sasuke wouldn't have minded if she came to work a little late, seeing as it was her twenty-fourth birthday, but last night she realized she had way too much work to get done to be able to sleep in. It was the only present she usually ever got – besides the annual card Ino never failed to give her – and, this year, she wasn't even given that. Not that it matter much anyway. Even Ino, who never had anything to do, was working around the clock.

In the meantime, she had turned her attention to the actual message. Unfortunately for her, the message wasn't as easy to break as the old one. Last night when she had first looked at the message, she had learned the first letters meant nothing and so she had decided to turn her attention to the last letters. The only problem was they weren't making any sense either. The message wasn't long enough to actually make a sentence. It was probably a code or a name or something else of the sort, which she had been trying to figure out for the past five hours since she had started working.

"I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life," Sakura murmured.

She sat down in her chair tiredly and glanced at the clock. It was about half-past noon. Sasuke was going to come and check up on her after his lunch break with Itachi and Shisui in about an hour. Hopefully she would have some progress done by then.

"Okay, some of the sentences have different punctuation," she said. "Maybe that's important, but what could it mean?"

Slowly she stood and walked over to a separate computer. She replaced the letters with exclamation marks in the first, sixth, and ninth rows:

! ! b y ! y c h

Slowly Sakura paced around her lab. She glanced at her computer screen to see that it had run through about half of the printers. She sighed loudly. There was probably another few hours for her to get a match or for the computer to run through all the printers. Though that was hardly an issue. How long was it going to take her to figure out the message this time? By the time she got it, the murderer could have killed again. It took her a week last time. She didn't think she had that kind of time.

"Okay, punctuation," Sakura said, focusing herself. "English 101: exclamation marks are to show importance or strong feeling. Maybe it's to show the importance of the sentence?" She paused and shook her head. "No. He wouldn't make it that hard."

With a soft sigh, Sakura glanced at the random letters she had written down. She stared at them for a long moment and slowly her brows knitted together. She turned her head to the side slightly and tried to figure out what was bothering her so badly. This looked somewhat familiar somehow.

"Hey, Haruno," someone said. "You busy?"

Startled, Sakura spun around to see Neji was standing in her doorway. Quickly she approached him to avoid him from realizing what she was doing. After all, Itachi had told her to keep it a secret and right now, all she needed was some peace and quiet to think, but unfortunately she couldn't ask for that, otherwise everyone would know she was doing something important. Instead she smiled as friendly as she could. "What can I help you with, Hyuuga?"

He beckoned for her to follow before he turned towards the morgue. "There's something I've been looking at, but I'm not sure what to think of it. I know you did a few years in medical school so I was wondering if you could lend me a hand."

"Um…sure," Sakura replied as she followed Neji into the morgue. She really didn't want to help him. Something about the end letters of the message were bothering her and she wanted to figure it out. Maybe if Neji hadn't walked in on her she would know what was so strange about them and she could have the message cracked by now.

"I was looking at this woman and I realized something was strange inside her chest," he said, taking the sheet off one of the victims lying on the metal table.

Sakura had to force herself not to flinch away from the gruesome sight. The woman appeared to be in her late-twenties. Her skin was blue and shriveled from lying on the ocean floor for so long and her hair was thin and dull. Neji had cleanly cut open her chest and pried her ribs apart to reveal her internal organs, but for some reason, it didn't look right. Something was strange about this woman. It looked like some of her organs were pushed aside in odd angles.

"At first, I thought she had some sort of accident," Neji said, "but I can't find any evidence or record of one."

Steeling herself, Sakura placed a glove on and covered her nose and mouth with her forearm before she peered inside the woman's body. She poked and prodded gently, looking over every organ and muscle in her stomach. Something was missing.

"Where's her liver?" Sakura asked.

Neji shook his head. "I don't know. There is no record in any hospitals in Japan of where it could have gone."

Sakura nodded slightly to show that she had heard. "Well, I'm not sure what's…" Sakura trailed off. "What's this?" she murmured.

Carefully she moved and readjusted the organs surrounding where the liver should've been. This was strange. They looked as if some of them had been moved and rearranged. "Did you move any of the organs at all?" she asked.

Neji shook his head. "No. I just got to her."

Sakura frowned. Her right lung was lower down than her left and her stomach wasn't in the right spot. If Neji hadn't moved any of the organs than that meant that she had been born this way. A condition like this was extremely rare. She couldn't remember exactly what it was called, but only a handful of people had it in the world.

"This woman was born with her liver front-to-back," Sakura explained slowly. "It explains why the lungs are uneven and the stomach is so far down."

"But that's extremely rare," Neji commented. "Do you really think she was born with Situs Inversus?"

Sakura nodded, recognizing the name of the condition. "Yes. There have only been a handful of reported cases but it's still…" she trailed off. What had been bothering her about the message finally dawned on her. She hadn't thought of it before but it seemed to make sense now. "Could it really be that simple?" she murmured to herself.

"I'm sorry?" Neji asked.

Quickly Sakura met his gaze. "Nothing. Just thinking." Sakura took her gloves off and threw them in the waste bin before she headed towards the door. "Excuse me," she said hurriedly. "I have something I need to look at."

Neji watched her leave before he returned to his work. Sakura hardly noticed though. After she was out of the morgue she ran back to her lab and pulled up the screen that had her random letters.

!ycbt!by!ych

Sakura grabbed the edges of the paper she had written the letters on and slowly turned it upside down as if afraid of what it might say. Carefully she pulled her hands back and stared at her screen as the message came crashing down on her. Her eyes widened and her breath caught as she made it out. The random letters were no longer random. In fact, she understood perfectly why they were there. Her brain made the connection that the h's were really u's, the y's were h's, and the b's were a's. She realized there was significance to the exclamation points just as she had predicted. They were i's.

Upside down, the message spelled out a name: the killer's new target.

 _Uchiha Itachi._

Then everything came rushing back to Sakura and she was moving at the speed of light. She turned to her computer and printed out the results as her heart beat painfully hard in her chest. The blood was roaring in her ears as she ran for the elevator, but the sound of her computer beeping loudly caused her to skid to a stop. Her computer had found a match to the ink. Slowly she turned around and stared at the screen as it blinked the results.

One name flashed across the top: Hyuuga Neji.

Sakura sucked in a deep breath. She had just been alone in the same room as Neji. He was the murderer. He had attacked her. He had killed all those people. _He was after Itachi._

Sakura ran to her computer and printed out the results as fast as she could, pleading for her printer to work faster, before she turned and ran for the elevator. As she reached for the up button, she froze. An 'out of order' sign was taped to the metal doors. Her eyes widened in panic and she took a deep breath, searching her mind for another way to get the message to Itachi before her eyes landed on the stairwell. Quickly she turned on her heels and ran into the stairwell, throwing the door open with a loud bang.

It felt like her lungs were going to explode as Sakura sprinted up the eighteen flights of stairs. The painful thumping of her heart from earlier felt like nothing compared to now as she booked it up the many flights of stairs. Her muscles screamed in protest from her exercise and her stab wound shot painful jolts into her abdomen, but she didn't let up her pace. When the door to the eighteenth floor came into view, she pushed herself harder and without slowing her pace, Sakura threw the door open and ran across the floor to Itachi's office.

Without knocking, she reached for the handle and turned the knob only to find it locked. She knocked loudly and called out to him, but there was no response. Frantically Sakura looked around and caught sight of the clock to see he was still out to lunch with Sasuke and Shisui. They were due back soon, but she had to get Neji in custody now or else he could slip away and they'd lose him.

In a panic, Sakura scanned the room and caught sight of Kisame and Sasori talking nearby. She made towards them, but stopped when the elevator door opened and the three Uchihas walked out. Unconsciously she sighed out a breath of relief and changed her direction to intercept them only to freeze when the stairwell door opened again and Neji stepped out. The afternoon sun hit him and lit up whatever he was holding in his hand. It was a gun.

It felt like time slowed as Neji approached Itachi from behind and raised his gun to the back of his head. Itachi, Sasuke, and Shisui didn't even notice as they continued towards the Superintendent General's office with their heads down as they discussed the file Sasuke was holding. Sakura had never really realized it before, but they were some sort of dysfunctional family. She knew they didn't always get along, especially Itachi and Sasuke, but they did love each other and if Itachi died, they would hurt – badly.

A strange feeling went through Sakura when she realized she would too.

A sudden fierce feeling of protection for Itachi came over Sakura and without thinking she dropped her papers and ran towards the Uchihas. She dodged around chairs and workers, searching for her gun as she ran. A shock of panic jointed through her chest when she realized she had left it in her lab. Anxiously she searched for anything that could be used as a makeshift weapon. She found her phone.

Quickly Sakura pulled it out. "Move," she yelled.

Itachi, Sasuke, and Shisui's heads all snapped up as she threw her phone at Neji. Quickly they ducked as Neji pulled the trigger and his gun went off. A loud shatter echoed around the room as the bullet made contact with her phone, destroying it.

Sakura heard the commotion of officers both hitting the floor and pulling out their guns, but she hardly noticed as Neji cocked his gun and made to shoot again. Fortunately he didn't have the chance to fire as Sakura reached him and grabbed his wrist, pointing the gun so it was over their heads. She felt his finger slip on the trigger and a shock went through her wrist as the gun went off again. A few bits of plaster rained down around them as the bullet hit the ceiling tiles, but she didn't give any thought to it as she continued to struggle with Neji. She knew he could easily overpower her, but she fought back with as much strength as she could muster. Not only Itachi's life depended on it, but hers now did too.

The fight with Neji for power over the other was complete chaos. Her mind was nearly in panic as she fought desperately to get the upper hand on him, but he fought against her as fiercely as she did with him. At one point, she thought she felt him trip backwards and fall back against the wall, but she couldn't be sure as she kept her attention focused on their fight and the barrel of the gun that was threatening to turn in her direction.

Suddenly Sakura felt herself trip backwards as he pushed off the wall. The throbbing jolt of pain in her back and shoulder momentarily stunned her, but she quickly found her bearings again and hooked her foot around his knee as he pointed the gun at her. He fell backwards, giving Sakura time to jump on him, and she managed to land a well-aimed punch to his face. Blood immediately gushed out of his nose, but as she pulled her arm back to swing again, he grabbed her and flipped her over his head.

Quickly Sakura rolled over to see Neji reach for his abandoned gun and her eyes widened as his fingers touched it. Frantically she launched herself towards him as he twisted onto his side to try and shoot her again, but her sudden weight fortunately caused him to stop in his tracks as they fought for control again. A sharp gasp escaped Sakura as Neji shoved her off of him, but her sharp mind recovered quickly and she jumped to her feet as Neji raised his gun again. Her eyes widened when she saw his finger wrap around the trigger and before her mind could register what her body was doing, she launched herself at him, her hand reaching for the gun.

Then the sound of a gunshot echoed in Sakura's ears as a sharp pain exploded in her side.

The world stilled and became quiet as the blast echoed into silence. She sucked in a deep breath and stared at Neji with wide eyes as pain throbbed in her side. Her eyes made contact with Neji's and she saw his own expression of shocked confusion. Carefully she took a step back only to have the pressure on her side disappeared. When her mind finally caught up with time and gave her the chance to analyze everything, she realized Neji had elbowed her stab wound – the wound he'd given her. A small wave of relief flooded through her when she realized the gun hadn't shot her. Realization hit her at her eyes widened and she slowly looked down to their hands to see the gun was pointed downwards towards Neji. The bullet had hit him. A small, shaky breath escaped Sakura's lips before pain over took her and they both crumpled to the ground.

Almost immediately the sound of officers rushed back to Sakura in a deluge. She heard people shouting and barking orders to one another and she could've sworn someone called her name, but the only thing she could understand at the moment was pain; a deep, raw pain that emanated from her stomach and seemed to spread everywhere. With a small groan, Sakura rolled over and wrapped an arm around abdomen while she rested on her forehead and knees. Her breath came out in ragged gasps and she pinched her eyes together tightly in pain as she vaguely felt someone touch her shoulder.

"Sakura." It was Sasuke. "Sakura, are you alright?"

"I so deserve a fucking raise for this," she gasped out.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, ignoring her sarcastic comment.

Carefully Sakura pushed herself up without removing her arm from her stomach before she sat back. "I'm fine," she said breathlessly.

She noticed Sasuke kept his hand on her shoulder anyway, but she didn't shake it off as she glanced around. The first thing she noticed was Neji. He was lying on his stomach with his hands cuffed behind his back, courtesy of Kisame, and there was a crimson puddle of blood pooling around his thigh from where the bullet had hit him. Their eyes made contact, but Sakura quickly looked away from his mixed gaze of fury and pain. Instead her attention turned to Itachi who was standing in front of her barking out orders, but he was quickly blocked from her line of sight when Deidara knelt down in front of her.

"Sakura, are you alright? Are you injured?" he asked, his usually playful attitude absent.

Sakura opened her mouth to reply when she felt a warm stickiness wet her hand and seep through her fingers. Her eyes travelled down to her covered wound and she slowly removed her hand. A shaky breath escaped her lips when she saw blood was coating her fingers thickly and slowly leaving a trail down the back of her hand. Slowly she raised her eyes to meet Deidara's, but he was staring down at her wound. When he caught sight of the blood, his eyes snapped up to meet hers briefly before he glanced over his shoulder. "Itachi! We have a problem."

"We already have a problem," Shisui's voice replied.

Sakura thought she heard Deidara reply, but everything was getting a little confusing and distant. The world was beginning the spin and the chaotic noise of the building was fading into a dull whisper. The only noise she could fully hear was her uneven breathing.

"Sakura, can you hear me?"

Slowly Sakura looked up and forcefully blinked the world back into focus. Itachi was now knelling in front of her. Confused, she glanced around to see Shisui had taken over Itachi's job of barking off orders to get everything under control, but she quickly turned back to Itachi when he placed his hand on her cheek to bring her attention back to him.

"She's going into shock," he stated.

Sakura shook her head slightly. "No, I'm not. I just – I can't…"

Itachi ignored her as he turned his attention to something over her shoulder. "I'm taking her to the hospital. You and Shisui are in charge until I return."

"Alright," Sasuke's voice replied from somewhere behind her.

Sakura's mind couldn't keep up with the next few minutes. Somehow, Itachi had hoisted her up into his arms and stepped into the elevator. It didn't escape her quickly fading attention that Itachi's arms were rather muscular and strong, and her disoriented mind noted that she wouldn't mind being there more often before another thought took over her barely lucid mind. How were they using the elevator? She somewhat remembered the sign on the elevator outside her lab had stated that the elevator was out of order.

 _Neji,_ she thought.

When the doors opened again, she saw downstairs was in just as much madness as upstairs, but Itachi didn't seem to even pay any attention to it as he walked briskly to his car. He carefully set her on her feet, making sure he had an arm wrapped securely around her waist as he opened the passenger door and helped her inside. After a few moments of Sakura fumbling with the seatbelt, he took it from her hands and buckled it for her.

A small blush of embarrassment rose to her cheeks and fortunately for her, Itachi had already closed the door before he quickly climbed into the driver's side and started the car. Then he raced off into Tokyo traffic.

Sakura realized she must've been drifting in and out of unconsciousness because one moment they were stuck in traffic and the next they were pulling into the Tokyo University Hospital. She only watched as Itachi carefully picked her up and carried her through the hospital doors. The moment they were inside, she heard him call for assistance and a second later, she felt herself being laid on a stretcher. Needles suddenly pressed into her arms and she felt someone cut away at her shirt until she was only in her pants and bra, but she didn't bother trying to cover herself up. She felt too weak to move and everything was getting a little hazy.

Blinking hard, Sakura glanced up and her eyebrow rose when she caught sight of Tsunade running in pace with the stretcher. "Dr. Tsunade?" Sakura asked quietly.

At the sound of her, the blonde woman gazed down at her and smiled slightly. "Sakura," she replied. "Do you know what's going on?"

Sakura nodded as best she could while lying down. "I'm in the hospital because my wound was reopened."

Tsunade nodded. "Good. You're aware of your surroundings," she murmured to herself. "We're going to make sure you don't have any internal bleeding and then we're going to stitch up your injury, okay?"

"Okay," Sakura replied quietly before she turned her sights upwards and watched as the overhead lights flashed by.

She wasn't entirely sure how much time passed as Tsunade ran tests and pressed on her stomach lightly to make sure everything was in order. The numbing medicine they gave her was making her tired and when she woke up again, she was no longer under the blinding light of an operating table with doctors surrounding her, but instead in a hospital room on a hospital bed. The curtains were drawn and the lighting was dim, but there was just enough light for her to see. Out of habit, Sakura glanced to her right to where her clock usually was in her bedroom, only to freeze when she saw Itachi was sitting in the chair next to her bed, watching her. "Superintendent General," she said as she moved to quickly sit up.

Smoothly Itachi stood and placed a hand on her shoulder to cease her actions. "If you move too quickly, you will tear open your stitches," he said in a calm voice.

Automatically Sakura paused in her actions before she sat herself up in the bed slowly, her eyes never leaving her superior. Only once she was situated did Itachi remove his hand and sit down on the chair again. His eyes wandered around her body before returning to her face. The intensity behind his gaze made her breath catch and a chill run down her spine, and she quickly pulled her eyes away from him.

Sakura wasn't sure how long they sat in silence as she continued to stare at everything but him and he continued to watch her. It wasn't long before she felt herself become uncomfortable and hot under his scrutinizing gaze, but she didn't dare break the silence. Besides, she wouldn't know what to say even if she could find the courage to speak.

Fortunately, Itachi decided to break the silence. "That was foolish." Sakura flinched at his tone. "You could have easily been killed. You did not have a weapon, you did not have authorization, you risked your life, and," he continued, making Sakura feel more and more miserable the more he listed off, "you have saved my life." Surprised, Sakura turned her gaze back to Itachi. He was standing now, but his gaze was no longer intense. It was something much softer and calmer. "And for that, I am eternally grateful," he said calmly. "Thank you, Sakura. I owe you more than I could ever repay."

Sakura hesitated. "I was just doing my job, sir."

"You are no longer a field agent," he countered.

She smiled as she turned her gaze down to her hands. "No, I suppose I'm not."

Sakura fell silent as Itachi's phone went off. She waited for him to leave the room and answer it, but instead he simply turned it off. "If you wish," Itachi finally said, "I can arrange for you to be released tonight."

Sakura's gaze immediately turned back to him. "Sir?"

Itachi sighed slightly. "Last time you were in the hospital, I had them keep you an extra day to be positive you were alright." Sakura cocked an eyebrow in surprise. "It would seem fair for them to release you a day early this time." He paused. "But that is only if you wish."

Sakura's mouth hung open for a moment in surprise before she sat up straighter. "Then how would they be positive I was alright this time?"

"Simple," Itachi replied. "I would accompany you tonight to be sure you were kept under surveillance and fed adequately."

Sakura stared at him for a long moment as she deciphered his words. "Are you asking me out to dinner, sir?"

A small smirk came to Itachi's lips. "In essences, yes."

Automatically the girl part of Sakura's mind kicked in as she ran through all of the clothes she could wear for an occasion like this one. Then her mind landed on the only outfit she currently had on her person. Slowly she shook her head. "But the only clothes I have are bloody and probably torn."

Itachi gave a huff of amusement. "If the sight of blood bothers you that much, you may always borrow my jacket."

Sakura stared at him in surprise. He was teasing her. And was he really offering to take her to dinner even though she had just been attacked once again by the East Coast Killer and just recently gotten out of surgery and was now sitting in a hospital bed? This was a little weird to her. No, she took that back; this was extremely weird to her. This wasn't exactly how she had thought this conversation would go. Though on second thought, she didn't exactly think Itachi would still be there went she got out of surgery.

"Don't you have to go back to the police station and get Hyuuga all sorted out?" she asked in confusion.

Itachi's eyes lit up in amusement. "Sasuke and Shisui are taking over tonight and you are avoiding my invitation."

Sakura crossed her arms defensively. "Why do you want me to go to dinner with you so badly?"

The amusement in his eyes faded to be replaced with something she didn't recognize. "Have I not made it clear?" he asked. Slowly he took a step towards her and bent down so their faces were inches apart. Surprised Sakura sank into her pillow. Her breath caught as she stared wide-eyed into his dark gaze. "Very well. I shall clarify."

Then he was kissing her.

Shocked, Sakura froze. She wasn't exactly sure what to do. What was going on? This was confusing. Was Itachi kissing her again because he really liked her and wanted to try a relationship with her? No, that couldn't be right. Sakura was nothing that Itachi could ever want in a woman.

As everything registered in her mind, she pulled back with a deep blush on her face. "Is something wrong?" Itachi asked.

Sakura stared at him for a long moment. Hadn't she decided last week that if Itachi kissed her again she would reciprocate the action? She could've sworn she did and what she had just done was the complete opposite. Slowly Sakura met Itachi's gaze. "No," she replied. "You just…startled me a little."

"I understand," Itachi said, pulling back.

"Wait," Sakura said, making him stop. He stared at her with those gorgeous eyes and for a moment she lost her voice. "I'm ready this time."

Sakura barely caught the smirk on his lips before he kissed her again. This time Sakura really was ready and she kissed him back just as fiercely. She snaked her arms around his neck and held him tightly as she tilted her head upwards to reach him easier. He placed a hand on the bed next to her waist to support himself as he kissed her almost painfully hard. But as much as Sakura didn't want the kiss to end, she desperately needed to breath and her side was killing her. Slowly she pulled back, but she didn't remove her arms from his shoulders as she buried her face in his neck. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that," she murmured.

Itachi didn't try to move away from her as they caught their breath. "Why did you not do so before then?" he asked.

"Because it was unprofessional," she replied.

Itachi gave a huff of amusement before he pulled back and reluctantly Sakura let him go. "I have something for you," Itachi said, turning to his jacket.

Sakura stared at him in confusion and leaned forward slightly to see what he was doing as he turned around to face her again. Confused, she turned her eyes to his face when she saw a white envelope in his hands. His expression didn't give anything away as he handed it to her. Slowly Sakura returned her attention to the envelope and opened it. Her eyes widened in surprise when she pulled out a birthday card.

It read:

Lots of people are thinking of you on your birthday; I just wanted to let you know I'm one of them.

At the bottom, he had signed it.

Before Sakura could stop herself, tears rose to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks in small streams. She closed the card and held it to her chest as the tears continued to fall. "Thank you," she murmured. "Thank you so much. This means a lot."

Itachi kissed her forehead lightly. "You are welcome, Sakura. Are you hungry?"

She hesitated before she nodded, her tears still coming down softly. "Yeah."

"Then I will go get Dr. Tsunade to release you," he said.

Before Itachi even had the chance to move, Sakura grabbed his shirt and pulled him down for another kiss. This one was a little less fierce, but with the same amount of passion as the first ones. It lasted a little longer than the last and when Itachi finally pulled away, Sakura couldn't fight the smile that tugged on her lips. She was happy. Happier than she had been in a long time and she would not allow herself to refuse this happiness that she deserved so much.

"I will be back soon," Itachi murmured.

He kissed her cheek and started towards the door, but stopped when Sakura called him. "Itachi," she said quietly. He turned to show he was listening. "You owe me a new phone."

Itachi smirked slightly. "Yes, I suppose I do." Then he disappeared out the door.

When he was gone, Sakura opened the card and reread it. She couldn't count the number of times she read that simple message that never failed to make her smile and she decided that she had never had a more happy – or exciting – birthday than this one. She had saved the life of her superior, she'd helped place a serial killer behind bars for life, and she was about to go out to dinner with the man she cared deeply for.

The only way for this day to get better was for her mother to call her and say how proud she was of her daughter for capturing the attention one of the most powerful and respected men in the country and for her father to tell her how pleased he was of her for assisting in the arrest of a dangerous murderer. But neither of those things were going to happen and she was okay with that because somewhere in heaven, she could see her parents smiling faces and that was good enough for her.

"Happy birthday to me," Sakura murmured as she closed Itachi's card and held it tightly.


	7. Epilogue

Epilogue  
Conflict of Interest

"All rise," the judge said.

Slowly Sakura stood with the rest of the audience, careful not to disturb her injury before she casually glanced at the people around her to see everyone who had worked on the East Coast Killer case was present. Ino stood proudly on Sakura's right with a smug smile while Itachi stood on her left. His fingers had been laced loosely between her own throughout the whole trial to show his support for her. At first she hadn't thought she would need it, but after she had been called to the stands she realized she needed it almost desperately.

But that was all over now and Neji's fate was about to be sealed.

"On twenty-eight accounts of third-degree murder, two charges of assault, and conspiracy of murder, the jury finds you guilty," the judge said calmly. "I hereby sentence Hyuuga Neji to life in the Tokyo Detention Center. Case closed."

At those words, Sakura couldn't help the satisfied smile that tugged at her lips. A strange sort of relief flooded over her as she realized that it was all over. The hell that had been her very life for the past few months was finally at its end. She could finally go to bed at night without having to worry if Neji was going to try to kill her again in her sleep. Not only that, but she got her apartment back and she didn't have to keep spending the night at Ino's or Sasuke's.

With a soft sigh, Sakura turned and started to follow her blonde friend out of the courtroom only to be called by her name. She froze at the sound of that voice. It was Neji's.

"Haruno!" he called.

Sakura hesitated. She wanted to keep walking without a backwards glance, but she knew that if she didn't face him now it would bother her for the rest of her life. She wanted this thing with Neji to end and the only way that was going to happen was if she told him how much she was going to enjoy her life now that she was free of him.

Slowly Sakura turned around and started towards the arrested convict, but she was tugged back by Itachi before she had taken more than a few steps. Surprised, she turned to him. His expression was unusually serious – he never used that look when dealing with her anymore – and his gaze was intense. Then she realized what was wrong. A small, comforting smile spread across her face as she gave his hand a small squeeze. "I have to do this."

Itachi hesitated for a moment before he nodded and released her. Slowly Sakura turned around and headed towards Neji and the police officer holding him at bay. He smiled wickedly upon her approach. "You know, I cannot understand what a powerful man like Itachi sees in a freak like you."

Sakura smiled. "No, I suppose you wouldn't."

Neji glared slightly. "What's that supposed to mean, pinky?"

Sakura ignored his provoking and frowned slightly.

Before, this man had been terrifying to her, haunting her every dream and thought. Now he didn't seem any more threatening than a caged cat whose fur was rubbed the wrong way. All his nefariousness and menace seemed to have disappeared with his freedom like dew in the afternoon sun. She guessed it was because she could roam around the streets without a care in the world without having to worry about when he was going to attack her next. Though she supposed she should be thanking him. If he hadn't asked for help with the autopsy, she wouldn't have figured out the message, but no, she wouldn't let him have the satisfaction of knowing he had helped her figure out he was the killer.

"I'm curious," Sakura suddenly said. "Did you target Itachi because he's the head of the police department or was it something else?"

Neji's eyes narrowed in anger. "Do you know why I killed all of those people?" he asked.

Sakura shook her head.

"Because they were all working against me," he hissed. "They all did something to make me look like a lesser person and they had to be taught a lesson."

Sakura's brows knitted together in confusion. "What did Itachi ever do to you?"

"He's an Uchiha!" he yelled. "He deserved to die!"

"And Sasuke and Shisui weren't good enough?" she asked, trying to understand his reasoning.

"No," he agreed. "Itachi is the leader of leaders. He controls everything." Neji suddenly became angry again. "And he took that away from the Hyuuga clan! We were supposed to be on top, not the Uchihas! I was supposed to be the Superintendent General, not him! And because he excelled at _everything_ , I suffered and got knocked down to being the 'Chief Medical Officer'."

Sakura stared at him. She had heard of this conflict a while ago on the news, but hadn't thought anything of it until now. Neji had murdered and killed almost fifty people because Itachi had gotten the job that he wanted? All she could think of was _wow_. Then her eyes narrowed and she looked at him with a dark look. "Then why did you attack me?"

He smirked. "That's obvious. You figured out the message. I had to give you your reward."

Sakura glared at him for a moment before another thought crossed her mind. "You're not a field officer. Why were you wearing your badge when you attacked me?"

A sick smile twisted onto his lips. "I never intended to kill you, Sakura. I wanted you to see the badge. I wanted you to be scared wherever you went, wondering if I was going to attack you again."

Anger surged through her chest and she glared dangerously at him. He was a sick, twisted fuck. He had purposely left her in the mental state she had been in. She would have permanent scars on her body and mind to remind her of what had happened for the rest of her life because he had wanted to scare her? What she felt towards Neji before felt like nothing compared to now.

"Because of you, I'm scarred mentally and physically for life," Sakura hissed harshly.

Neji grinned. "A parting gift."

"If your ass wasn't being hauled off to jail, I would give you my own parting gift."

Suddenly the police officer holding Neji pulled him backwards a pace. "Time to go," he said.

Neji glared at him before returning his sights to Sakura. "Come visit me," he grinned.

Sakura wasn't amused. "You know, Hyuuga," she said seriously, "I would rather rip open my own stomach with a dull knife and pull each one of my organs out and label them in alphabetically order than come visit you." Neji's grin faded at her words, but Sakura didn't stop. "Let's just say, the only visitors you'll be getting are the ones that are going to ass rape you."

If it were any other situation, Sakura would've laughed at Neji's expression. His look of almost horror was incredibly amusing, but she just gave him a smile of pure satisfaction before she turned around and walked towards Itachi. He held out his hand towards her and with a bright smile, she accepted it before they turned their backs on Neji and walked out of the courtroom.

"What did Hyuuga want?" Itachi asked.

Sakura glanced around at the people still out in the halls as they walked towards the entrance. "An ass raping," she replied.

Slowly Sakura looked up at Itachi to see he was staring at her strangely. The memory of Neji's face when she told him her parting words surfaced in her mind and she couldn't help but grin. Itachi stared at her for a moment before they walked through the front doors of the courthouse and pushed past reporters who were looking for the inside scoop.

Only when they were seated in Itachi's car did he lean over and kiss her full on the lips. Immediately she responded and kissed him harder when Neji's reasoning for why he targeted Itachi drifted through her mind. Quickly she told herself to relax and she pulled back slightly when she felt Itachi smirk against her lips.

"What?" she asked.

He kept his expression blank. "Nothing."

Sakura gave him a look that told him she didn't believe him, but nonetheless he started the car and drove towards his house.

The drive helped soothe the nerves Sakura had left over from the trail. She was quiet the majority of the way there. Most of the time she watched Itachi navigate through the late-afternoon traffic, but occasionally she turned her gaze out the window to the passing cars and stoplights. Her vision faded out as her mind repeated her conversation with Neji over and over. She could still remember his anger towards Itachi clearly for taking away what he desired so much and she realized she didn't blame him for being angry. Itachi had taken away what he wanted most. She could only imagine what she would be feeling if she hadn't figured out the message in time and Neji had killed Itachi.

The very thought made her heart ache. She wouldn't have even had the chance to tell Itachi how she truly felt for him and she would've had to live with that for the rest of her life. She guessed that she wouldn't have been on her way to the trial this morning. She would've been headed towards Itachi's funeral instead, probably wearing the same black dress she was wearing now with her mascara running down her face in silent, black streams of misery. Sasuke would probably be driving her to her apartment right now and then she would cry and cry until her body eventually said enough and shut down. Ino would be coming over to check on her soon and she would hold Sakura until she woke. Then Sakura would tell Ino just how much Itachi meant to her and how much she hated herself for not telling him. As time passed, she would probably move on, but she knew there would be a small part of her that would forever hurt.

"Sakura," Itachi's voice said softly.

Slowly Sakura blinked herself out of her thoughts. She refocused her eyes ahead of her to see they were parked in Itachi's driveway. The gigantic house was looming in front of her with the spring sun shining just behind it. The red bricks contrasted greatly against the blue sky, but she still thought the house was just as gorgeous as the first time she had seen it. All the windows on the house were reflecting the clear sky and she took comfort knowing that one of those windows led to Itachi's room; the room he would still use for years to come.

He wasn't dead. In fact, he was currently holding her door open, waiting for her to get out, with a slightly worried expression. Carefully Sakura took off her seatbelt and accepted the hand he was offering her. He closed the car door after her, his hand still gasping hers, but didn't start towards the house just yet. Sakura looked up at him, but before she could say anything, he stepped towards her and wrapped his arms around her.

"Everything is alright," he assured her. "I will not allow anything to happen to you again."

Sakura opened her mouth to correct him on her thoughts, but decided against it and instead returned his gesture. She wasn't sure how long they stood there, each holding the other, reveling in the thought that a serial killer was no longer after either of them. They were safe and that's how they would both remain, with one watching the other's back at all times.

"Come," Itachi finally said. "I shall make you lunch."

Sakura looked up at his beautiful face and smiled softly. "Okay."

Then he took her hand again and they walked inside.

* * *

Sakura pulled out another painkiller and popped it in her mouth as her front door opened before she took a deep breath to help with her stomach wound and nervousness as footsteps echoed from her hallway. Quickly she placed her medicine into her purse and double-checked that she had everything as a knock on her bedroom door sounded. "Sakura, are you ready?" Itachi's voice asked.

"Yeah," she replied. She cringed as her voice shook slightly.

Her bedroom door opened and she heard Itachi take a few steps inside before he stopped. Purposely, Sakura kept her back to him as she readjusted her already straight dress. She cleared her throat lightly and walked over to her dresser to grab her necklace. She unclasped it and lifted her arms to tie it around her neck, but a sharp stab of pain ripped across her abdomen making her flinch and quickly she pulled her arms back down.

"Are you alright?" Itachi asked quietly as he approached her.

Sakura nodded quickly without looking at him. "Fine."

She could almost see the frown that was bound to be on his lips as he stopped behind her before he gently took the necklace from her fingers and put it around her neck. He rested his hands on her shoulders before he lightly traced his fingers down her arms. "Does it hurt?" he murmured.

Without thinking, Sakura nodded. She couldn't lie to him.

"Have you taken your medicine?" he asked calmly.

She nodded again. "Just now."

Carefully Itachi traced his hands back up her arms and turned her around. "Do you still wish to go to the ceremony?"

Quickly she smiled and nodded. "Yes, I'm fine."

He measured her up for a moment before he nodded and headed back out into her hallway. Sakura waited until he was out of sight to lean against her dresser and let out a long breath as she placed a hand on her stomach for a moment. Then she pushed herself up and walked out of her bedroom, grabbing her purse on the way.

As much as Sakura didn't want to go, she had to. All the officers in the TMPD went to the Tokyo Police Metropolitan End of the Year Awards Ceremony – Sakura didn't know why they called it the End of the Year Ceremony; it took place in late June. If an officer didn't go, everyone knew about it.

Its purpose was to acknowledge all officers for their suffering and hard work, but the most important part of the celebration was the Officer of the Year awards. It's an award given to the top ten officers who worked especially hard to get their job done right. Everyone always fought for it, something Sakura never understand for the persons were forgotten by the end of the following year, but it helped everyone aim towards a goal that made them work hard in a healthy way.

The drive to the ceremony hall was quiet and when they finally pulled into the parking lot, Sakura glanced at Itachi before she put on a smile and stepped out of the car. There were already quite a few cars parked in the lot and automatically Sakura searched for either Ino or Shikamaru's vehicle. Unfortunately she couldn't find it in the time it took Itachi to join her in front of his car and she had to turn away as she walked inside with Itachi.

There were a handful of officers on the bottom floor asking for invitations and directing people to the main hall where the party was located. When they spotted Itachi, they made their way towards him and bowed before engaging him in small talk. Sakura zoned out slightly, but was brought back abruptly to the present from the sudden, tight squeeze Itachi gave to her hand. Immediately Sakura's eyes flew up to meet his, but her glare stopped short when she realized the officer was also speaking to her. "We set up a table in the middle of the hall for the Uchiha family and yourself, Haruno-san," the officer said. "Fugaku-san and Mikoto-san have already arrived. Shall I inform them of your arrival?"

Itachi shook his head once. "That will not be necessary. Thank you. Have a good evening."

The officer nodded. "You too, sir." He turned to Sakura. "Ma'am."

Sakura was still staring at the man in surprise as Itachi started walking with his hand on the small of her back. Her wide eyes turned to Itachi, but he was purposely looking ahead. Eventually Sakura gave up and turned her attention to the people that passed by. All of them greeted Itachi and once again, Sakura was surprised to hear a lot of them wish her a good evening too. She had never been greeted by this many people before. It was an odd change.

"Come," Itachi suddenly said, leading her away from a majority of the officers present. "I want you to meet my parents."

Sakura's eyes widened and she stopped walking. "What?"

Itachi halted and turned to her when he realized she was no longer with him. "Is there a problem?" he asked in confusion.

"You want me to meet your parents?" she clarified.

He nodded. "Yes."

"Right now?"

"Is right now not an appropriate time?" Itachi asked calmly.

Sakura laughed awkwardly. "No, it's not." She started to walk away in a different direction. "How about next year?"

Itachi caught her wrist in three long strides and pulled her back to him. Her body relaxed at his touch, but he could see the nervousness in her eyes. He gave her wrist a small squeeze before he led her towards the table where his parents were waiting. She noticed his hand had absentmindedly wandered to her back and was gently rubbing it, helping to settle her. "Do not worry," he whispered. "My mother will love you."

Sakura looked out him out of the corner of her eyes. "And your father?"

When Itachi didn't reply, Sakura looked at him sharply. Unfortunately before she had the chance to do anything, Itachi spoke: "Mother, father, I am pleased you could make it."

Sakura followed Itachi's gaze to see an older woman and man were standing before them. She noticed the woman was wearing a simple cocktail dress that showed off her figure beautifully, but not in a revealing way while the man wore a simple black suit. Immediately Sakura noticed that Itachi got his looks from his mother. His father was not an unattractive individual by any means, but he looked more of like Sasuke than Itachi.

Then she realized the woman possessed the eyes that she loved so much about the Uchiha family. Hers were amazing. They were absolutely sparkling with emotion. There was so much thought and feeling in her gaze Sakura couldn't make out one emotion from another. The couple looked so gorgeous Sakura felt herself shrink on the spot.

Fortunately, Itachi still had his hand on the small of her back and was silently giving her encouragement. She smiled at them politely and forced herself not to show her insecurities when Itachi released her to hug his mother. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek before Itachi shook hands with his father.

Then they turned to her.

"And who's this?" his mother asked.

"Mother, this is my girlfriend, Sakura. Sakura, this is my mother, Mikoto, and my father Fugaku," Itachi introduced them.

Sakura stared at Itachi for a long moment when he called her his girlfriend. It was the first time he had ever done so aloud and it was a little unexpected, but nonetheless she smiled when she quickly found that she liked it. It made her heart warm. With her smile still in place, Sakura extended her hand only to gasp slightly in shock when Mikoto reached forward and hugged her. She stiffened in the older woman's grasp, but slowly forced herself to hug her back. "Hi," Sakura said, pulling back slightly. "It's nice to meet you."

"We've heard so much about you," Mikoto smiled. "I heard you saved my son's life. Thank you so much."

Before Sakura could even respond, she found herself in another hug. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she didn't try to pull back. She had already thought of what life would be like without Itachi; she couldn't imagine it from a mother's point of view.

"I think you might have heard wrong," Sakura said after Mikoto let her go. "I only stopped him. I…I didn't-."

"Nonsense." Sakura stared at Fugaku is surprise as he spoke for the first time. "If you had not been there, our son would not still be with us."

Sakura smiled and opened her mouth to reply when another sharp stab of pain ripped through her. She sucked in a deep breath, immediately feeling Itachi's hand on her back, and tried to smile through the pain. It was useless though. Mikoto's expression was already clouded in worry and Fugaku's hand was extended slightly as if he had started to help. Quickly she glanced at Itachi and smiled weakly. "I'm fine."

He didn't look convinced. "You should sit."

Sakura steeled herself. "I'm fine. Honestly."

Itachi still didn't look convinced, but fortunately all their attention turned away from her as Sasuke approached. "Mother, father."

Immediately they engaged in another round of greetings. Sakura stood back and watched quietly as the family exchanged news and unconsciously her eyes glanced around the room only to find Ino and Shikamaru standing nearby. Ino caught her gaze and waved her over, but Sakura held up her finger to tell her 'just a second' before she returned to the Uchihas conversations. "Please excuse me," Sakura said quietly.

Everyone glanced at her before Mikoto smiled. "Of course."

Then Sakura turned and fled as inconspicuously as possible towards her blonde friend. "Hey, how are you doing?" Ino asked.

Sakura smiled slightly. "Please don't ask me that. Itachi's been watching me like a hawk since I got out of the hospital."

Ino looked over Sakura's shoulder. "Still is." Then she turned back to her friend. "What's wrong with that? He's just showing you that he cares."

Sakura shrugged. "I'm not dying."

Ino grinned. "But you were." Then she wrapped her arms around Sakura in a friendly embrace. "I never congratulated you on catching Hyuuga-bastard. You have no idea how proud I am of you!"

Sakura raised an eyebrow, but hugged her back nonetheless. "Thank you, mother. I live to make you happy."

Ino smacked her across the back of her head. "I was being serious."

Sakura rubbed the place Ino hit her before she rubbed her arm uncomfortably. "Everything's been too serious lately. I think I'm going to lose my mind if I don't be a little immature. Besides, what's life without a little fun?"

Ino snorted in reply. "Yeah, 'cause what better way to have fun than almost being murdered by a serial killer?" She paused. "Twice."

Sakura glared at her as Sasuke started the opening speech. She glanced around to see everyone was taking their seats before she returned to her attention to Ino. "Are you sitting with us?" her blonde friend asked.

Pursing her lips together, Sakura shook her head. "I'm sitting with Itachi's parents."

"Fun," Ino said. "Better hurry so you make a good impression."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I saved their son's life. What more of an impression do I need to give?"

Ino shrugged. "Point taken. I'll talk to you later then."

Then Ino turned around and joined Shikamaru at a table across the room. Sakura watched her leave before she turned and made her way back to the Uchiha table. She took a seat next to Itachi and watched as Sasuke explained to everyone how well they did this year in keeping up with all their cases. She didn't pay too much attention after that and at one point she reached for a glass of wine only for Itachi to take it out of her hands before she could take a sip. "It's dangerous to mix your medication with alcohol," he explained. Sakura rolled her eyes in reply, but knew he was right. He gave her hand a soft squeeze before he stood up and joined his brother and cousin on stage.

"As every officer at the Tokyo Metro Police Department knows, this past year has been the most stressful in recent years," Itachi started. "The East Coast Killer case was the most difficult and time-consuming investigation ever to come across Japan and I am proud to say that my officers were the ones to solve it. I can now say from experience that all those who worked on the case are the bravest and most intelligent individuals I have ever had the pleasure of working with and I would be pleased to work with each and every one of you again.

"For those who wish to take up work at another precinct, I am more than willing to give a recommendation to wherever you wish to go. I hope for you all to stay, but I understand if you wish to find work elsewhere.

"I would also like to thank Special Agents Sasori, Deidara, and Hoshigaki Kisame. Without their help, our case would have reached some dead ends that would have taken a while to get out of…"

Sakura glanced around the room as Itachi continued to thank multiple agents and officers. She vaguely watched as the officers on the case received the Officer of the Year award, herself included, but she didn't go up. She had the excuse of being injured so instead she sat and watched as Ino and Shikamaru stood with everyone else on stage. Sakura didn't hear the specifics as she eyed the wine glass again, debating whether or not it was worth the risk to have. Eventually she reached for the glass, but the moment the smell hit her, she lost her craving for it. Alcohol sounded appealing at the moment, but didn't smell it. Slowly she placed the glass down and glared at it before she returned her attention back to her the Superintendent General.

"There is one last award for the night I would like to give," Itachi continued. "As most of you do not know, there was one last message the killer sent us." A surprised murmur rippled through the room. "Because Haruno-san was attacked by the killer, I saw it fit to not release it to everyone on the case. We knew that the murderer was someone on the case, but we were not sure who it was. I spoke with Superintendent Supervisor Shisui and Chief Superintendent Sasuke and we decided to keep the message a secret so the murderer had a bigger chance of making a mistake and accidentally revealing himself. Before he could do so though, Haruno-san solved it. She learned that I was the new target-."

Itachi paused as more murmuring erupted around the room. Sakura shrunk slightly in her seat to avoid the many curious gazes sent her way, but one look from Itachi had her sitting up straight in her chair again. She ignored the gazes and glanced at Ino to see she was grinning proudly at her. Shikamaru caught her gaze and he nodded his approval before he returned his attention back to his superior.

"Not only did Haruno-san find out I was the new target and that Hyuuga Neji was the killer, but she also risked her life to save mine. She fought hand-to-hand with Hyuuga and even injured herself in the process to save myself," he paused slight. "Which is why Superintendent Supervisor Shisui, Chief Superintendent Sasuke, and myself have decided to award Haruno Sakura with the Metal of Honor."

Sakura looked up slowly with an expression of stunned surprise and met Itachi's gaze as applause erupted around the room. Itachi nodded at her and gestured for her to come up to the stage with a small smile that only she could see. Her eyes wandered around the room to see everyone was clapping and smiling at her, encouraging her. Carefully Sakura stood and walked to the stage.

It felt like everything slowed around her as she approached Itachi. She could see people clapping out of the corner of her eyes, but their motions were slow and sluggish. Itachi was still giving her that small smile of his, but this time it didn't comfort her. It felt like her heart was in her throat as she walked up the four steps to the top of the stage.

 _I wonder if this is a side effect of my medicine,_ she thought absently.

The moment Sakura shook Sasuke's hand everything came rushing back to her. The noise of the crowd returned and the sound of people cheering reached her ears as she turned to Shisui and did the same thing. Then she turned to Itachi. She took his hand, but it wasn't like the usual soft caresses. His grasp was firm and full of authority. It made her smile.

"I wasn't expecting this," she murmured.

Itachi smirked. "Glad to know I can still surprise you."

Sakura's smile widened slightly before she grasped her award and turned towards everyone. Their applause quieted as the Uchihas stepped back and she stood in front of the microphone. For a few seconds she stood on the stage watching everyone as she tried to figure out what to say.

"Um…" Sakura started lamely. "Well this was unexpected." Her eyes wandered around the many faces before they found Ino. Her blonde friend was smiling brightly at her and slowly she felt the courage to speak. "You know, when I was younger, I never dreamed of going into the police force. The thought of carrying a gun didn't sound very appealing to me." She paused. "Now I won't go anywhere without one."

A small chorus of agreement rippled through everyone before they fell silent again, waiting for her to continue. "But of course, the one time I actual needed my gun, I didn't have it," Sakura said. She smiled. "I guess my phone paid for that." Everyone laughed slightly at the memory of her using her phone as a weapon against Neji, but quickly quieted again. Sakura glanced over her shoulder at Itachi. "You still owe me a phone, you know." He raised an eyebrow in response.

Sakura smiled before she glanced down at her award again. "I'm actually glad that I went through all that I did though," she said quietly. "It made me realized something really important; something that I had been missing since I went into forensics." Slowly she raised her gaze and spotted Naruto sitting with Kakashi. They glanced at each other in confusion before they turned back to her. "I missed that excitement, that adrenaline rush that you get when you realize that there's something you absolutely have to do." Itachi's curious gaze was burning a hole in her back as she spoke, but she didn't look at him.

"Being on the East Coast Killer case made me realized this." She paused for a long moment. "Which is why I have decided to return to the field."

Silence and the shocked faces of her friends met her words. Ino's face was one of complete shock while Naruto looked horrorstruck. Kakashi's wasn't quite as obvious, but she could tell he was still surprised by her announcement. If he was shocked, then she couldn't even imagine what Itachi was feeling at the moment. She already knew he wouldn't agree with her decision, but she didn't want to be stuck in a lab anymore. She wanted to be out in the field until she was physically incapable of being there and that's what she planned to do.

"Thank you," Sakura finally finished. "Have a good evening."

Then she turned away from the microphone as everyone clapped if not a little unsure before she bounded down the stairs back to her table. Mikoto smiled at her as she sat down and gave her hand a squeeze before she turned back to Itachi who was speaking again. Fugaku's expression was blank, except for the small crease of his forehead. When Itachi gave that expression, he was worried. Was Fugaku worried about her? She doubted that, but from the way he kept watching her from the corner of his eyes, she began to believe it was true.

As Itachi wrapped up his speech and everyone made towards the food table, Sakura stood up and escaped to the restroom before Itachi could catch her. She needed a few minutes to compose herself and prepare for the argument that was bound to happen.

"Sakura, are you out of your fucking mind?"

The pink-haired woman looked past her shoulder in the mirror to see Ino walk into the restroom. Her arms were crossed angrily, but her blue eyes were shining with concern. She was genuinely worried about her. Slowly Sakura turned around and smiled slightly. "What do you mean?"

"Cut the shit," Ino snapped. "Are you seriously considering going back into the field after everything that you've been through this year?"

Sakura closed her eyes briefly. "I really want to, Ino. I wasn't happy doing forensics."

Ino sighed. Her anger slowly faded until her expression turned into worry. "Are you sure? There's a lot of other things you could do-."

"Ino," Sakura interrupted, "I'm sure."

Ino frowned slightly. "Well if that's what you want to do…" She paused. "Promise me you'll at least stay safe."

Sakura smiled before she hugged her long-time friend. "Of course I will be."

Then she released her and walked out of the restroom. Thankfully, Itachi wasn't at the table when Sakura approached. She took a seat and sipped on some water as she watched friends and family walk by, talking and laughing with one another.

"I am assuming you are not longer interested in the alcohol?"

Slowly Sakura turned in her seat as Itachi stopped next to her chair. She placed her glass down and shook her head. "It doesn't smell very appealing anymore."

Itachi didn't comment and instead extended his hand to her before nodding towards the dance floor. With a small smile, Sakura accepted and carefully stood before she allowed him to lead her to the floor. A slow song came on as Itachi wrapped his arms around her waist and she slowly lifted her arms to his neck before she leaned into him.

It was quiet for a while as they rocked back and forth to the soft melody. Sakura rested her head on his shoulder and breathed in his scent as his arms wrapped around her protectively.

"You did not tell me you wished to return to the field," Itachi said softly.

Sakura glanced up at him sheepishly before she returned her head to his shoulder. "I didn't think you would let me."

Itachi stopped dancing abruptly, causing Sakura to look up at him in confusion. His lips were pursed and his eyes didn't look happy. "Sakura," he said slowly, "understand I would never stop you from doing what you want to do." He cupped her face gently. "Just tell me."

Sakura nodded slowly. "Sorry."

His only response was to kiss her. It was soft, but it told her so much she felt her heart swell. When he pulled back, Sakura's head was still reeling, but she managed to smile as they fell in time to the music again. She followed his lead to the melody and looked up at him in confusion when he stopped again.

"I have something for you," he murmured.

Sakura looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Slowly her gaze dropped to her hands when she felt him press something into her palms. She half expected it to be another card, but her eyes widened a fraction before a wide grin spread across her face.

It was a phone.

It was a deep emerald phone. Carefully she slid it open to reveal a black keypad and a shiny, new screen. The numbers were still silver and automatically Sakura scrolled through her phonebook to see Itachi had already put his number in for her. Now all she needed was the rest of her friends.

With a soft smile, Sakura closed her phone and looked up at Itachi. "Thank you," she murmured before she placed a sweet, chaste kiss to his cheek. He replied by tightening his arms around her waist. Then they began swaying to the music again.

Sakura spotted Ino with Shikamaru dancing nearby as Itachi's parents rocked in time to the beat. They were smiling at one another. The sight made Sakura smile at their happiness and she vaguely wondered if that's what her life would be like when she reached their age. Would she be here dancing with Itachi, as they watched their son or daughter dance with their own lover?

She could only wonder.


End file.
